Epoch
by petthekat
Summary: Thanks to a fluke of Pietro Maximoff's hyperspeed powers – and the determination of a certain Kitty Pryde – a group of Bayville teens find themselves stranded in one of history's darkest chapters. [rated for adult themes/violence]
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note: Welcome! This is a re-write of a story I did a few years ago. The majority of the plot will stay the same, but I'm working on improving my technique, so the whole story will see improvement. I have added new content, so if you read before, please re-read! I believe you will enjoy it. :)

To those of you who reviewed the first go round, thank you _so _much. This particular story was my first venture into creative writing in a very long time, and even though it was rough, you all gave me wonderful encouragement. I have continued to write during the last year – despite my busy school of grad school and working full-time – because of your kind words and time. So thank you! I hope if you're re-reading this, you enjoy it even more than the first time.

**Summary**: Thanks to a fluke of Pietro Maximoff's hyperspeed powers – and the determination of a certain Shadowcat – a small group of Bayville teens find themselves stranded in one of history's darkest chapters.

**Rating**: M for Mature. Story contains violence, war, genocide, character death and an overall abandonment of morals. Not for the faint of heart.

Last note – These characters are largely based off their X-Men: Evolution characterizations. However, the story contains elements from the movies, comics and other cartoons. Nothing present in the story should be confusing if you're not familiar with all the adaptations of X-Men, as it will be explained if relevant to the overall story.

* * *

_No! Not this time, Maximoff!_

It was Kitty Pryde's last coherent thought before she leaped for him, straight from the cafeteria floor where she'd been hiding, half-phased into the grimy laminate.

Because he wasn't getting away this time. That coward was always running, but not this time. He would have to face the consequences.

* * *

"Hey, Kitty! Catch!"

The warning was too little too late, particularly for Kitty's delayed morning reflexes, and when the Nerf ball landed with a _splat _in her bowl of cereal, she got a face full of milk and soggy Cornflakes.

"Evan!" she wiped at her face with the back of her sweater sleeve, sending her most heated glare down the long dinner table, where a dozen other teenagers ate with varying levels of enthusiasm. The morning was bright, airy and welcoming, and even better than that, it was the last day of school before summer break. This time last year, the table had been positively deafening with excited chatter. This year, however, was a different story.

"Sorry," Evan joined Kitty at her spot and pulled the sopping wet Nerf ball from her ruined breakfast. "You have terrible reflexes."

"Yeah, well, you have terrible aim," said Kitty, helping herself to a piece of toast just as Kurt Wagner appeared with a puff of wispy, foul smelling smoke. "How do you think you guys will do on your finals?"

Evan toyed with his ball, dark eyes turning listlessly to the window. "Who cares. I'm just glad this year is finally over."

"Da," agreed Kurt, as he clicked his hologram inducer to _on, _his blue fur and pointed ears instantly masked by a more human-like appearance. "School is terrible. Ever since… well, you know."

Kitty swallowed a bit of dry toast before giving up on breakfast entirely to shoot a happy smile their way. "Come on, guys. Things will get better. People just need time to adjust, that's all. They'll get used to the idea soon, and then everything will be totally smoothed over by next year, ya know?"

"Yeah well, tell that to those of us who are graduating," said Scott Summers, car keys dangling in his fingertips. "If you guys want a ride to school, you better move it. I gotta stop and get gas."

"Oh!" Kurt called out. "I get front seat!" _Bamf. _Evan cursed before shoving a whole piece of toast in his mouth and leaping over the bench.

"You always get front seat!" he called before dashing out.

* * *

Kitty Pryde was a model student, thank you very much, and she'd always genuinely enjoyed school. Ever since transferring to Bayville to live at Xavier's Institute for Gifted Youngsters, she'd strived to give her best at both her studies and her training. And it wasn't even because she was a nerd like – ahem – _some_ had suggested, but because she really wanted to do well. Now, she could only hope the tiny, nagging voice inside her head that said all that effort might be for nothing would just shut up and go away, because she was going to be a senior next year, and she needed to keep her head clear.

"_If mutants want to jobs and education, I say, let them build their own schools!" _

"_I don't want my kid going to school there. Not with those mutant freaks." _

"_They kill people! I saw it, and I read about it." _

"_No mutants in public schools! I heard they can spread their mutation through touch. I'm keeping my kids away." _

Kitty wondered when every classroom had started tuning in to the news during school hours. If it had been going on before, she might have noticed. But maybe not, she thought as she passed down the hallways of Bayville High, books clutched tightly to her chest and eager smile threatening to crack. Maybe the students and teachers at Bayville had always watched the news, read the fear-mongering websites, spread the lie-filled articles, and she had been there, just as oblivious as anyone her age had the right to be - _before _all of this had happened.

Before everyone in Bayville knew they were mutants.

If the news was harsh now a days, it was nothing compared to the 48 hours following their big reveal. Kitty would never forget seeing her face on the television screen, phasing through a police car, scratched and bruised and stricken with terror in stark contrast to the heated, overly excited tones of the News 5 reporter.

"… _now positively identified as high school junior Kitty Pryde…"_

"_Are they mutants or aliens? More at eleven." _

"… _now believe the entire student body of Xavier's Institute for Gifted Youngsters may be mutants." _

"_Fear wins the day as national paranoia grips the country, neighbor versus neighbor, friend against friend, entire families afraid to even step outside…" _

The city hadn't succeeded in its mutant ban, but it was a mixed blessing. Every day seemed to come with a new restriction, a stricter rule, a fresh warning. Even a hint of their powers at school meant immediately expulsion, no questions asked.

Kitty took her seat in AP Biology just before the warning bell trilled, all the while doing her best to ignore the uncomfortable shifting of her lab partner in the seat next to her. "Hey Jen," Kitty pressed when she was met with silence. "Ready for the summer?"

She'd always been _so _nice before, even though they never hung out outside of school, but nowadays, Kitty's sweet friend seemed to go to any lengths to avoid looking in her direction. Sure, they'd never been close, but Jen had always been so kind and helpful before. Now, a courtesy nod of greeting was much as Kitty could get out of her, strained as it was. When the class finally came to its long and uncomfortable end, Jen bolted from her seat like Kitty held the world's most dangerous and incurable virus.

_It gets better, _Kitty thought to herself with much less enthusiasm than before. _It gets better. _

* * *

Pietro Maximoff abhorred school.

Not because he didn't like learning – he did – and not because he struggled to read at a third-grade level – like Lance – but because it was, a whole, boring as hell and it made his teeth hurt to think about the fact that Magneto forced him to attend with Lance and the other cretins.

When Pietro had questioned him, Magneto had given him some sort of vague answer about keeping the right kind of mutants in public view, because if all they had to see was the submissive, kicked dog behavior of the Xavier brats, who knew what kind of weaklings they might take mutants for? Those were, at least, the reasons Magneto had given him, but he'd been very dismissive about the whole thing and Pietro suspected he might have simply been trying to get him to go away.

Whatever the reason, it was stupid dull, and the only thing that kept him from sprinting straight out of Dodge was knowing that Magneto would find out, and hell if he cared to get on his bad side at the moment. So here he was, sitting at a cafeteria table, listening to Toad work his disgusting tongue over a sandwich while Lance picked his nails with the keys to his Jeep and Wanda sat aimlessly, glaring hard at anyone who dared glance her way.

Suddenly, Lance stumbled over himself on the cafeteria bench and fell into an unconvincingly casual pose, so Pietro looked in the direction of his cross-eyed stare. Kitty Pryde walked by, not sparing the table so much as a glance. As soon as she was gone, Lance reverted back to a slumped, primate-like pose that looked much more natural on him.

"I thought you two morons were through," said Pietro idly.

Lance shrugged. "She's just playing hard to get, that's all." The silver-haired speedster raised a thin brow, two slim fingers poised over a salt-shaker.

"Oh yes," said Pietro. "Because Kitty Pryde is a renowned seductress."

"Hey, she's gotten me blue before," Lance said gruffly.

Pietro made an unimpressed grimace and replaced the salt-shaker before shifting a stare in Lance's direction. "Lance, I've lived with you long enough to know that it doesn't take much more than a girl trying to empty a ketchup bottle to get _you _all hot and bothered." Lance colored red and turned his grunt to the table once more, leaving Pietro to scan the cafeteria boredly.

There they were, the X-Dorks all huddled at their table, shying away from every heated glare sent their way. The Brotherhood's table wasn't spared the dirty looks, but they'd been getting them for ages, and really, it was nothing new. Even if it was, Pietro doubted they'd take it as personally as those sad little lambs seemed to.

He'd heard Jean Grey's pleading address to the city council. Their cries for understanding. Their efforts at equality. Those idiots had talked to everyone from the principal down to the damn janitor in an effort to plead their case. All they wanted was to be a_ccepted, _what was s_o _hard about that, why couldn't everyone just _love _one another and hold hands and – and – do whatever else stupid little kids did at summer camp, because that's the only image he could conjure that was disgusting enough to satisfy him in terms of how he felt about the X-Men.

Their world was about to explode, and the only consolation to Pietro was that he would be there to watch it burn.

* * *

"Pass a straw, Kitty." A pause. "Kitty – Hey, Kitty! Wake up!"

Jarred out of her stupor by a straw to the eyeball, Kitty snatched it from Evan and passed it down the line to Tabitha, who jabbed it in her soft drink. Man, lunch time was quickly becoming her least favorite time of the day. She felt so exposed in the cafeteria, even when surrounded by her fellow mutants. And they were all pretty crammed, now that they all sat the same time. None of the other kids in school would even entertain the idea of sitting with them, and since they'd started isolating themselves to this one, some brilliant jackass had graffitied it after hours with a bunch of profane words the school board didn't deem worth the cost of a fresh coat of paint.

"Hey girl," Angel Salvadore slid into the seat next to Kitty, making Evan grimace as they fought to make room. As usual, Angel barely noticed, only flashing a brilliant smile and a wave of her dark hair before tearing into a side of fries.

Angel had the type of personality Kitty had wanted all her life – confident, smooth and always full of laughter, just as pretty in her soul as she was on the outside. Even now, with all the craziness in school, Angel never seemed to take a single moment's notice of the hateful looks. She was much the same as always, ready with a quip and a wink, and she made Kitty's heart lighter. To the naked eye, Angel looked just as human as anyone, but the pair of inked wings on her back were much more functional than they appeared.

"How'd your final go?" asked Kitty, helping herself to a fry.

Angel grinned and bit the tip off a fry. "Oh, I forgot most of that crap in like five seconds, so I cheated." At Kitty's choking gasp, she laughed and shrugged. "I'm sorry! You're a great tutor, Kitty. I'm just a terrible student."

With a roll of her eyes, Kitty stood away from the table. "You need to buckle down, Miss Salvadore," she said in her best teacher tones, and Angel grasped her chest in mock earnestness.

"I'll straighten right up, Miss Pryde! I swear it!"

Giggling, Kitty waved a hand. "I'm going to go grab a water for gym class, I'll see you." Angel waved and turned back to her fries, leaving Kitty to journey across the cafeteria in the direction of the vending machines. She sucked in a deep breath and forced herself to keep her eyes straight, because if she looked out at the many rows of scornful faces following her path, she might just not make it through the day without tears.

Unfortunately, she never made it to the vending machines, because a certain slim speedster blocked her path.

Pietro Maximoff drawled, "Hey there, Pryde."

Kitty stopped, blue eyes narrowed, and she tried to edge around him. He stepped in her way, his smirk growing, and Kitty steamed on the inside. _Ooh, he thinks I'm so stupid, _she growled inwardly.

Pietro Maximoff was, in Kitty's opinion, one of the vilest creatures on the planet, and not just because was the flesh and blood of Magneto. Everything about him screamed _danger, _from his uncaring stance to his glinting silver eyes. His complete disregard for life was also more than a little alarming.

"What do you want, Maximoff?" she asked, fighting to keep her voice low.

Pietro reached in his pocket and drew out a small silver device, which he wiggled in his fingers in front of Kitty's annoyed face. "I was just wondering if you could tell me what this gaudy piece of shit was," he said casually, and Kitty's eyes widened.

_Oh, no. _

Pietro's smirk only deepened at Kitty's obvious alarm, and he tucked the hologram inducer into his palm with a low chuckle. "Don't you think someone should tell Wagner that people _already_ _know_ he's a mutant? I mean, you could really get some mileage out of him, if you know what I mean. He could be like your mascot."

A dangerous shade of red rage colored Kitty's vision. Pietro had Kurt's image inducer, and that meant he was stranded somewhere, bluefurred and pointy-earred.

"He can just teleport home," gritted Kitty between clenched teeth, but Pietro simply shrugged, looking no less pleased than before.

"I wouldn't be so sure about that," he said, tossing a look over his shoulder. Kitty followed his gaze and, to her great horror, saw Wanda sitting at the Brotherhood's table, darkly outlined eyes staring intently at them. Kitty's heart seized with fear. If Wanda was controlling Kurt's powers from here – Oh, god.

"Give it back!" she snapped.

Pietro jerked his hand away, true amusement lighting up his severe features. "Oh, Pryde, Pryde, Pryde… Don't you know by now that you will never, _ever_ catch me?" He backed away with a small hop, the hologram inducer in his fingertips once more as he waved it around, high over his head, and it was now that Kitty realized how utterly silent the cafeteria had gone.

"You see this, folks? This is what you call a crutch," he said loudly, just before crushing the hologram inducer in his hand, the busted bit of popping wires falling to the floor with a comically loud crunch. "It's something our race can't afford anymore," he faced Kitty, but his words addressed the entire cafeteria, and she felt her body tremble.

"No more hiding behind fake little pictures, fancy mansions or years and years of lies," he stared down Kitty from a few feet away, and she could feel him soaking up every ounce of anxiety and fear that left her. "That's right, folks. There are _mutants _among you. You can either live in our world," his grey eyes grew more serious, "or you can die in the old one."

Kitty clenched her teeth so firmly that her tooth nearly cracked, but Pietro held her gaze.

"Mutant and proud," he taunted lowly, just to her. "Right, Pryde?"

He disappeared just like that, dashing off into a run that sent the entire cafeteria into chaos. Tables flipped, windows shattered, benches flew into the air. Screams erupted as students panicked and ran, fighting to avoid flying chairs and heavy benches that might slam them into walls or trap them against the ground.

Kitty shrieked and phased straight into the ground, hands flying over her head in a fit of instinct, and when she peeked up over the floor, all she saw was a microcosm of anarchy that grew with every passing second. "Maximoff!" she called out, so mad she could spit, but the cafeteria was impassable and people were running, screaming, dashing for the doors.

Then, without warning, sirens blared. Lights flashed from the ceiling. And when Kitty emerged from the ground and made a run for her table, she heard the shouts of frightened students. The doors were locked.

"What's happening?" Angel shouted over the deafening noise, but Kitty could only shake her head. In a flash, Bobby Drake appeared next to them and grabbed their arms.

He shouted, "We've got to get out of here! They're locking the cafeteria down!"

Kitty whirled on her heel, only to see that Bobby was absolutely right, because as she watched, metal walls emerged from the ceilings and came to the floor, wall by wall, slamming into the foundation and effectively trapping them inside. Yet another measure of mutant control, she thought with bland, tasteless fear. Evan appeared as well, his brown eyes wide.

"Dudes, come on! We've gotta go, we gotta –"

That was when Kitty saw him. Standing at the back of the cafeteria, smirk in place, enjoying the chaos he'd created with a simple split-second display of his formidable powers. Pietro Maximoff was undoubtedly and one hundred percent satisfied with what he had done, and he was about to get away with like, like always. Like freaking always, and suddenly, Kitty Pryde was as mad as she'd ever been.

She dropped into the cafeteria floor and phased underneath the stampede of terrified students, coming up just behind the unknowing speedster. With a fierce growl, she leaped from the floor and straight onto Pietro Maximoff's back.

"No you don't, Maximoff!" she cried, arms wrapped around his neck.

Pietro lurched forward under her sudden weight, but quickly righted himself. "What in the hell," he exclaimed, turning to throw her off his back. Unfortunately for him, he had only just noticed the closing metal walls, and Kitty felt him stiffen significantly, all signs of amusement gone from his sharp features. "_Shit." _He reached over his shoulder to pull her off, but Angel grabbed Kitty from behind.

"We are about to get turned into mutant tuna in here!" she shouted, pulling on Maximoff. "And it's all your stupid fault!" Bobby and Evan came to her side and tried to pull the two girls away, and the struggle ended up in a strangle grappling contest that came to an abrupt halt when Pietro yanked with all of his strength. The walls were nearly closed, and Kitty's last memories of that moment were eclipsed by Pietro's angry snarl.

"You want to hold on so bad, Pryde? Give it your best shot," he hissed, and then there was a great pulling in Kitty's stomach, a jerk like she'd never felt before, and she vaguely remembered Angel's hands on her arms and Bobby and Evan behind them before everything became a flash of white, silver and black.

After that, the world went completely black.

* * *

"_I'm sorry, Pietro –"_

"_It's okay, we've just got to keep moving." _

"_I tried, I really did this time! I'm so – I'm so sorry!" _

_The young boy barely held in a sob. His limbs felt like they were on fire and he was so tired, so hungry. But they had to keep running, because he could tell the mob was getting closer and they weren't nearly far enough away. He couldn't carry her anymore. His little limbs weren't up to it, not after all this way. _

"_There they are!" cried out a voice that wasn't one of their own, and he felt his sister shift into his side with a fearful whimper. Angry voices and angrier faces appeared, glowing orange against the backdrop of a raging fire. It was always like this, thought Pietro tiredly. _

_Night to night. Home to home. Village to village. The fires burned on in the distance, a beacon to the destruction caused by the Maximoff twins, and Pietro's mind weighed so heavily with despair that his fleeting thoughts as the mob approached them reflected on how he missed being called gypsy thief, because at least that was better than Satan's spawn or demon. _

"_Children of the devil!" someone shouted, pointing. "That girl is possessed!" _

"_My livestock are dead! My house destroyed!" shouted the elderly man who'd taken them in for a night, and Wanda sobbed at his side. Pietro couldn't carry her any more, and he couldn't run, so he fell to his knees in front of her, hoping they'd be satisfied to take him instead. Wanda couldn't help it. It wasn't her fault. _

_The night air felt so dry. _

_He wanted to protect her, but all he could do was stand in front of her, ready to accept death on both of their behalves. He closed his eyes for a moment of respite. When he reopened them and saw a great, looming shadow standing in front of him, he knew it was the angel of death. _

_The shadow spread its arms wide, and Pietro bowed his head to accept death. However, it was the mob that dispersed, and then the great looming figure turned to Pietro and Wanda Maximoff with only a whisper of movement. _

_The angel of death, thought young Pietro. It has come. _

* * *

"SHIT!"

Angel's startled curse was the last thing Kitty heard before she slammed into the unforgiving earth with breathtaking force, where she continued to skip like a stone on a pond for several feet before coming to a slow, painful stop.

_Ow. _

It took several dazed moments before Kitty lifted her head, the taste of dirt and blood mixing unpleasantly in her mouth before she wiped her cheek with a shaky hand and spit. "Eugh," she groaned, squinting at her surroundings as she pushed herself to stand. One of her ankles hurt like hell, and she had a long streak of dirt and blood sitting on top of a very nasty scratch on her side.

She was outside. And she was in the woods. Fantastic.

"Angel?" she called out weakly, limping a few feet away from the gnarly trail she'd left in the dirt with her hapless body. "Angel!"

"I'm here," the Latina girl emerged from behind a tree, looking just as worse for wear as Kitty. Her brown eyes went wide as she took in their surroundings, and the two girls linked arms for a moment of solace before Kitty straightened.

"Stupid Maximoff," she muttered. "He ran us somewhere!"

Angel pushed her hair back from her face with a dirt-streaked hand. "Oh, great. Now, what? We're all getting expelled. What a load of crap! I worked really hard on cheating on that final!"

Kitty turned away from her just in time to see Bobby Drake jog towards them, his shirt torn severely and his face bruised. "Kitty! Angel!" he caught both of their arms, eyes scanning them for injuries. "What ha –"

"Whoa," Evan stumbled into view, holding his head until Bobby came to his side and held him up. "What in the hell happened? Where are we?"

Bobby sighed heavily, "No idea. One minute we were in the cafeteria and then – Oh, hell. Maximoff. He ran us here!"

Kitty turned in a circle. "I don't see him! He must have run off, that sorry coward. I swear, when I find him, I'm going to ring his scrawny neck." Evan scowled and leaned against a tree with a wince. He'd messed up his leg pretty badly in the fall.

"Ring his neck? Kitty, if I could get a hold of Pietro Maximoff right now, I'd pound his face into the asphalt." He shifted his shoulder gingerly. "Probably break my own arm doing it, though. Anyone else get slammed into the dirt like they were coming out of a cannon? I'm not even sure I remember my middle name."

Bobby was the first to act, pulling his cellphone out of his pocket. "I'll call Scott, let everyone know we're okay," he said, but as he looked at his phone, his frown grew, Kitty's unease growing with it. "That's weird," Bobby looked up at the other teens. "My phone doesn't have any signal."

"Mine either," confirmed Angel with a glance, and the others found the same. "We must really be in the middle of nowhere."

Evan groused, "Just great. Now what?"

"Chill," Angel put her phone back in her pocket. "I'll just fly above the trees and see where we need to walk to. We're probably just outside of town or something." She removed her light jacket, revealing a slim tank beneath that gave full view of the intricate wing-shaped lines on her shoulder blades. With a fluttering hum, Angel's wings pulled away from her skin and came to life, and she leaped straight up into the air to fly through the tree limbs and above.

When she returned a moment later, Kitty instantly picked up on her confusion and uncertainty.

"I don't see Bayville," she admitted, pulling on her jacket once more. "I don't see anything I recognize, actually. It looks like there's a river here in the forest, but it's not any place I've ever seen. I have no idea where the hell we are."

Kitty sighed. She did not need this kind of stress today. And yet here it was, staring her in the face. And why? Because she'd let that arrogant prick get the best of her and draw her into a public argument. This was all her fault.

Well, she'd right it now. "Come on, we'll just get somewhere we can use a phone and call the institute. We'll be home in no time," she said with as much enthusiasm as she could manage, and the others fell into step behind her as they began to walk a winding path through the woods.

However, they'd walked no more than twenty or thirty feet before a strange sound met their ears. Angel paused first, her head turning upwards to the sky, where sunlight filtered through the dense foliage in sparse beams of gold.

"You hear that?" she asked.

The others paused, but Evan shrugged and moved forward, trudging ahead of Kitty.

"Who cares, let's just go," he said, moving several feet ahead as the others listened. The noise grew louder, and after a few moments, began a low, steady hum. Her brows furrowed. It almost sounded like.

"Is that… airplanes?" she asked, but she'd barely gotten the words out of her mouth when –

_BOOM. _

Angel screamed at the top of her lungs, arms flying over her head as a fiery plume erupted just to their left, bursting into a high tower of intense heat. A split-second later, another explosion sounded just behind them, unfurling into the trees with sadistic strength and purpose. Trees splintered and exploded, catching fire and raining down on their heads as the four teens burst into desperate runs.

The faster they ran, the more bombs dropped around them, one after another, creating craters in the ground so near their feet they had to leap to get over them. Whistling preceded every drop, mounting fear their only warning before BOOM! Another bomb burst into the ground, just in front of Kitty, behind Evan, next to Bobby and Angel, separating them and forcing their wild runs to become more erratic, more terrified. Fire and heat danced so close to Kitty she felt it lick at her elbow, and her chest felt so dry and hot, she could scarcely breathe.

Her limbs hurt, the cut at her side screaming at her, but the explosions rocked the earth more and more every time and once she barely leaped out of the way, and the tree that took her place toppled over with a groan and nearly crushed Bobby beneath its monstrous weight.

Then, in front of them, Kitty's jumping, teary-eyed vision spotted something on the ground, silver in contrast to the dark earth. "Bobby!" she called out, her voice catching, lack of oxygen making her delirious as her feet pounded into the earth, more bombs sounding all around her. "Maximoff!"

A collapsed heap on the ground, nothing more, eyes closed and all too oblivious to the literal hell coming down on them.

"Leave him!" shouted Evan, tripping once and barely missing a falling tree.

Kitty cried out as she skidded to a stop, trying to be heard over the vicious explosions. "Please, guys! Don't leave him! He's complete defenseless!" More planes zipped by overhead, adding to the thunderous din going on all around them, but Kitty's desperate cry finally reached Bobby and he came to her side, pushing her away as they both kneeled next to Maximoff.

"I'll carry him! Go!" he shouted, and with a fierce look of determination, he shifted completely into his ice form. Kitty jumped up and began running again, only looking back in time to see Bobby shifted Pietro's limp, unconscious form over his shoulder before he jumped onto his ice slide and pushed ahead of the rest of the group.

"A CAVE!" he pointed, further up and ahead of the rest of them. "Go, go!"

They sprinted, dodging the forest on fire as it crumbled to ash under the intensity of the bombs, which fell with increasing fervor from the planes above. A pained cry drew Kitty's attention and she stopped, looking back just in time to see Evan fall over in his spot, clutching his leg.

"EVAN!" she screamed, digging in her heels in preparation for a sprint that would never be fast enough. She wasn't Pietro Maximoff, after all. And the one time they needed him, he wasn't there.

Evan looked up, pained eyes finding Kitty's just before the hissing whistle sounded and the bomb – perhaps the last of all of them – dropped through the air and lit the area in a fiery circle of unyielding, unforgiving heat.

Evan disappeared in the blaze, and everything suddenly became quiet to Kitty, only the ringing in her ears letting her know she had not gone completely deaf. She felt Bobby pulling her away, felt Angel tugging on her arm until she was in the mouth of the narrow cave.

But all she saw, all she felt, was Evan's gaze. Gone, forever.


	2. Chapter 2

Author's Note: Epoch, Chapter 2 – Revisited. Enjoy.

* * *

_Fuck. _

Even before Pietro Maximoff opened his eyes, he was nearly suffocated by the cloud of dirt that followed his first inhale. Gagging against a cold and unforgiving ground, Pietro finally managed to bring up an arm, which ached like he'd never known in his life, in an attempt to push himself into a sitting position.

Good god, what in the hell had happened to him?

His efforts were in vain. Nothing in his body felt right, and god, it _hurt. _He could barely coordinate his own movements, much less will himself into a sitting position, so Pietro merely flopped onto his side to avoid smothering himself in the dirt. Bleary images jumped in front of his vision, but it was hard to make anything out. Where ever the hell he was, it was dark. And cold.

"… Bobby, look! Look, Maximoff is awake!"

Voices. And judging from the accent, it was that slutty fairy, the one who talked like a streetwalker from the Bronx. _Eugh_.

With a heavy groan, Pietro shifted onto his side in the direction of the voices, and if he'd been any more aware of what was going on around him, he would have jumped at the sight of a pair of blue eyes way too close to his.

"Pryde?" he managed to choke, right before a swift kick in the form of a tiny slippered foot landed right in his stomach. "OW!" he shouted, and a flurry of curses spewed out of his tormented mouth before it was broken up by a coughing fit, and _hell_, that was definitely blood. Great.

"The hell is your problem, you bitch?" snapped Pietro, trying to ignore the way his voice cracked in pain. Moaning, Pietro rolled over onto his stomach, though he kept one eye open incase his vicious 5'3 attacker came at him again.

If he'd been more cognizant, he might've noticed something was really, really wrong. But he wasn't, and he didn't, and to be frank, he didn't give a damn what was going on, only that he planned to unleash some hell as soon as he was able, because what the hell had he ever done to deserve this?

"Kitty!" scolded Bobby Drake from the side. Ooh, splendid, thought Pietro. Just what he needed right now. Frosty the Snowman.

Pietro twisted his head enough to try and look around. What the hell? The X-Dorks were arguing off to the side, and so he interrupted them.

"Is this some kind of – " Cough, hack. " – X-Men torture cave?" He eyed their dank surroundings with mild disgust before falling over ungracefully onto his back. "Nevermind," he said dully when met with stupefied silence. "You losers aren't cool enough to have a torture cave."

Kitty Pryde advanced on him with a hiss, "Shut up, Maximoff. This is all your fault!"

"My fault?" Pietro turned his head and fought a wince. His body was completely trashed. Why did he hurt like this? He'd never felt like this after a run. Never. No matter what he'd done, he'd always been able to bounce back. Fear threatened to creep into his veins. He couldn't even sit up, much less stand and run. The vulnerability was not lost on him.

"Yes, you!" Kitty exclaimed, looking away from him, in the direction of the cave entrance. It was iced over, Pietro noticed with vague, pain-laced interest. "You're the one who dragged us here. Where are we?"

"How the hell should I know?" Pietro grunted. "I wasn't paying attention. I just ran. And it's not my fault you're here, Pryde. I didn't tote your, " Cough, wince. " … sorry asses here. You did that." He stared at the ceiling, unwilling to let them see how his face bunched with pain. He kind of felt like he was collapsing on the inside, which to his limited medical knowledge, did not bode well for him. But damned if he let those X-Geeks know about it.

Already annoyed with the conversation, Pietro sneered at the cave ceiling. "Look, you morons," he curled his fingers in the dirt as pain lanced his right leg. "Call a god damn bus if you're so worried about it –"

"_EVAN IS DEAD_!"

Pietro turned at the sharp cry, and for the first time since he'd awakened, he saw Kitty Pryde's face fully in front of him, too clear and vivid for his liking.

"Evan…" he repeated slowly. "From school?"

"Yes, Evan from school!" Kitty snapped, and he could see it now, where tears leaked from puffy red eyes and smeared with dirt and blood on her cheeks. The two stared down one another for a long, tense moment before Kitty jumped up and moved away, unwilling to look in his direction.

Pietro said nothing.

Bobby Drake stepped forward, arms folded. "Look, Maximoff. We tried. Our phones don't work. And we can't reach Professor Xavier, either."

After a moment's quiet thought, Pietro assumed a mask of indifference and turned his head in Bobby's direction. "You trying to send him a postcard, Drake? This shouldn't be difficult. Isn't he a freaking telepath?"

"Yes," Bobby snapped defensively, before a frown took over his features and he gave an uncomfortable shift of his body. "Actually, I've never been able to… well, NOT reach him before. I can't feel him at all. That's never happened before." He looked around the cave, a distant _drip_ _drip_ in the back making Pietro feel even dirtier than he actually was. He'd spent enough of his life living outside, thank you very much. He had no interest in reliving the experience.

As Pietro mulled over Bobby's words, that fairy – Angel, or whatever the hell her name was – stepped forward with a sneer.

"I swear to God," she growled, her dark eyes narrowed deeply on Pietro. "When we get back to Bayville, I am going to make sure you get locked up forever, Maximoff. Evan's death is on you, you son of a bitch."

Pietro glared at her, but said nothing. He couldn't defend himself right now, and even speaking took a lot of effort. He'd worry about Angel's threats when they got back to Bayville.

"You messed up, Maximoff," she continued with a huff. "Where ever the hell you took us, it's like – a war zone or something. There were… " she paused, trailing off as she worked over a lump in her throat. "There were, like. _Bombers_."

Pietro's brows furrowed. "What, like … airplanes?"

Bombers? He looked around the cave again, but it didn't offer many clues. He reclined again, fighting to make himself at least a little more comfortable. Damn these stupid X-Dorks. They had no idea what they were talking about.

He didn't know where he'd run them, but they had to be mistaken. He wouldn't have run into an active war zone. Despite ample evidence to the contrary, he was not stupid.

Before he could think of an appropriate response, Kitty Pryde spoke up again from near the cave entrance. "Look," she inhaled deeply, obviously trying to overcome her _divine _sense of sympathy and altruism which kept her rooted to her spot, overcome with devout misery. "I'll go out and have a look around. If we can figure out where we are, we can figure out how to get home."

"It's too dangerous," said Bobby, the gallant knight of the _square _table. "You should let me go. Those bombers could come back."

"Bobby," Pryde straightened her little off-pink cardigan. "If anyone can make it past those bombers, it's me. It's safer if I go. Just stay here and watch – " Here, she sneered at Pietro, an endearing expression, really, "- _Maximoff." _She tossed him her ugliest look, and Pietro, who had managed to sit half-way up, gasped and made an exaggerated flourish at his heart.

"You wound me with your antagonism, Pryde."

Kitty's glare deepened and she looked away, giving quick hugs to the other two before turning back to the entrance. She did spare him one last dirty look, though, so Pietro raised both brows at her and made flurrying motions with his fingers in the direction of the cave door.

With one last indignant huff, Kitty Pryde phased through the ice and disappeared.

* * *

The forest was strangely quiet.

Gingerly stepping around the many craters that now dotted the landscape, Kitty tried not to think about what she'd seen out here. About Evan. About how she'd have to explain to Professor X, to Storm, to everyone back home. She bit back a whimper.

They lived a life of danger. It was true. She knew, without ever having been told, that someday, one or more of them would be lost, and there was never any true way to prepare for that. But this? It felt so senseless. So sudden.

She trudged on through the forest, looking for any sign of civilization. Thus far, only dense foliage and sparse rays of sunlight met her. She kept on, with the sun at her back so she knew which direction she was heading. Not even the sounds of woodland animals broke the heavy silence. They'd been chased off or incinerated, probably.

Kitty's throat tightened. Maximoff. That sorry, spindly, cowardly piece of –

She stopped, gathered herself with a deep, calming breath, and continued walking. For him to just – wake up and brush off their words, to act like this wasn't totally and completely his fault. Which it was. In every single way, this was his fault, that worthless excuse for a mutant. If he'd died in the cave, she might not've been sorry. Well, not right now, anyway. She might've felt bad when her ire cooled, but right now, the pain was too fresh for her to spare a moment's sympathy for that heartless bastard.

It made her feel a little better to call him that, even in her own head. Bastard. Bastard. Bastard.

She knew he was in pain, and whatever he'd done to get them here had certainly cost him, but he deserved it. She agreed with Angel. He was a psychopath, just like his low, dirty, power-hungry fath –

Kitty stopped, her heart seizing in her chest.

A barn loomed in sight, just ahead and visible through a series of tall, aged trees. Kitty edged closer, twigs snapping too loudly underfoot. Pushing aside some branches, Kitty emerged in a clearing, and for a moment, she allowed herself to take in the beauty of a traditional old red barn and the flower-filled pasture behind it. A wooden fence had once looped the open property, but it was falling apart in more than one place, and Kitty had to step over some broken pieces to near the old structure's entrance.

"Hello?" she called timidly, blue eyes darting around the area. Wind caught the edges of the barn door and caused it creak slightly, and the rustle of hay within tempted Kitty to peek inside. It was large, but sparse, with lots of crates that appeared empty, or filled with equally empty milk jars. It didn't seem to be in use, though there were a few old tools propped up against the walls, and chairs in the very back. Kitty's eyes roamed the open layout. Glassless windows opened on either side, allowing the breeze to float through the area and catch Kitty's brunette ponytail.

Unkempt hay crunched underfoot, and the wood groaned below her shoes. There didn't appear to be anyone here, but Kitty turned her gaze to the ladder at the back of the barn and moved to it. It led upwards, to a loft and an open window, as large as the barn doors, which faced out into the flower-filled meadow. Grasping the rung cautiously, Kitty climbed up the ladder bit by bit, until she reached the top.

At first, all she saw was more crates, but as she stepped up on the old wooden platform, she let out a shriek and nearly tumbled off the platform.

"Oh, god," she gasped out loud, hand over her heart. In front of her, propped lazily against a bunch of crates and still dressed in shreds of clothing, lay a human skeleton. After a few moments of chanting mantras to herself, Kitty finally stood again and eyed the skeleton. _Freaky_. And all too real, after what she'd seen today. What on earth was going on in here? What kind of place just left skeletons of people lying around like throw rugs?

Swallowing her distaste, Kitty edged closer and studied the skeleton. Any hints of flesh or hair were long gone, but it looked like maybe it was male, judging from the clothes. The jaw hung loose, and the skull lolled to the side at an odd angle, so Kitty moved around the skeleton until she spotted an unnerving hint as this person's end, in the form of a nasty hole in the temple. They'd been hit, or shot, she wasn't sure, but judging from the now visible stain of scarlet, deep in the wood surrounding the unfortunate soul, she guessed they'd died right here.

Shivering, Kitty moved to get away. She'd seen enough.

Just before she left to descend the ladder, however, she spotted the rustling of a paper in the wind. Curious, Kitty leaned over and pulled it out from underneath some crates, creating a thick cloud of dust that she swatted away before peering closely at what she'd found.

It was a magazine.

"_Der Stürmer," _she read aloud, brows knitted with confusion. The language changed after that, and made no sense to Kitty, but at the bottom, a tag line in continued in German.

_Die Juden sind unser Unglück!_

In the center of the page was a grotesque cartoon, and even though she couldn't read the rest of the words, it didn't take a genius to discern its blatant racism. Her fingers trembling, Kitty's gaze turned to the upper corner of the newspaper, where bold print drew her attention.

_**Regierungsbezirk Zichenau**_

_**Warszawa**_

_**10 Lipiec 1942**_

Heaviness began to form in the center of Kitty's chest, and she shifted the paper this way and that in her hands, as if maybe she could make it talk to her. To let her know that what she was reading, confusing and strange as it was, could not be real.

No, she quickly decided, folding the thing magazine and shoving it in her back pocket. She was wrong. She'd take this to the others, and they'd help her figure it out. She'd just –

_**POW. BANG. **_

The sound of gunshots was so jarring, so loud that Kitty phased straight through the loft on pure instinct, falling into the ground of the barn and disappearing beneath the soil.

_What is happening?! _

She peeked just above the barn floor just as the gunshots rang out again, and this time shouts accompanied it, with thunderous footfalls and angry commands, more shouting, and this time the bullets pierced the side of the barn and burst through in angry, shining holes. Kitty fell back into the ground with a shriek, her heart pounding painfully in her chest, and before she could think of what else to do, she phased up into an empty crate and hid inside.

She leaned to peer through the small gaps in the wood, her eyes on the barn entrance, her head pulsing with prayers.

A flurry of gunfire rang out again, this time so near the barn that Kitty just knew she was going to get shot. She crouched deep in the crate, her arms over her head as a bullet pierced the top of the crate and splinters rained down on her. Only the sound of more bullet disguised her screech, and then the echoes of more shouts replaced it. Men rushed into the barn and, as soon as Kitty dared to take a peek through the crate again, she saw them take refuge under one of the glassless barn windows.

Her lips parted in horror. Soldiers, men armed to the teeth in guns and grenades, each fighting to reload his weapon, stand, take a shot, avoid a bullet. An explosion sounded outside and someone screamed, not a command but the shrill shriek of shock, and the three men in the barn ducked down to avoid the devastating effects of the explosion.

Someone bellowed from outside the barn, and a series of rapid fire cut through the wood again. One of the soldiers inside was hit, and he struggled in vain for a moment to wrap his leg, before another gunshot knocked him off his feet and his head slapped against the ground with a wet, unfeeling thud. Blood pooled beneath him, but his comrades kept firing, only sparing him a moment's glance.

"Oh my god," whispered Kitty, her eyes filled with tears. The eyes of the man who had fallen stared in her direction.

The noise inside the barn was deafening, with the gunshots outside coming closer, growing in frequency, and the frantic retaliations of the soldiers inside responding in kind. "_Wstawaj_!" one of the men shouted out of the window. The other crouched to reload his rifle with trembling hands, but a single well-placed shot knocked him off his feet and he collapsed to the floor, his hands still poised on his weapon. Blood sprayed the hay bale behind him, adding another layer of grime to the unattended dust.

Kitty gave a little cry and fought to stifle it, her shoulders hunched in the box. She could phase through the ground and maybe get out on the other side, but who knew what waited her out there?

The last soldier looked to his fallen comrades, and as Kitty edged closer to the box, he closed his eyes for a moment of silent tribute. Then he leaped to his feet, his features twisting with fury as he pulled a grenade from his belt and tossed it outside. Surprised yelps and shrieks sounded, but he didn't wait for a proper response, only firing with wild abandon out of the window without even attempting to hide himself.

A flurry of bullets pierced the wall and the last man lurched to the side, first to his left and then his right, as he was hit more than once. He fell to his knees, gun still in hand, and a gurgle escaped him. The choking sound he made was somehow louder than anything else Kitty had heard there.

More footfalls sounded outside, and Kitty heard someone entering the barn, though she couldn't see anything properly from her angle. Instead, she only saw the last soldier, who looked to the doors with an angry grimace. He ripped off his helmet and forced himself to stand, even as he heavily favored one side, and his leg bent awkwardly beneath him.

"_Dla Polski!"_ he shouted, before opening fire on the doorway. More bullets rained down on him, but the barrage of gunfire did not dissuade him. After what seemed to Kitty to be an impossibly long time, the thuds from the front of the barn fell away and stopped.

Only then did he slump to the floor once more, his gun loosening in blood stained hands. Kitty's trembling fingers reached forward to touch the crate, and for a moment, she thought about rushing to him. Maybe she could help, maybe she could – Tears blinded her. She couldn't do anything.

"_Niech cię...naziści_," he choked out, before his knees finally gave out on him and he slumped to the floor of the barn.

Silence.

No hints of movement sounded, and even as Kitty strained, she couldn't hear any more voices. With one last prayer sent skyward, Kitty emerged from the crate, her instincts in full alert. When her pretty pink flats stepped in a pool of sticky red liquid, Kitty yanked back her foot and fought off a shiver.

She carefully edged around the first two bodies, and even though she tried not to look, she managed to catch glimpses of their faces. They were both Caucasian men, one of them older and grayed, but the other was very young. Brunette, with a few freckles. Upon closer inspection, Kitty realized they were actually flecks of blood.

Her stomach turned.

She came to the last man just in front of the door, and she paused to tenderly check his pulse point. He was dead, and she waited for a moment, her eyes closing. God, hadn't there been enough death today? What was this place, some kind of hell? She straightened, sniffling even as she demanded better of herself. With a deep swallow, she turned to the barn entrance, hoping only to get the hell out of here.

Unfortunately, she found her path blocked by more bodies, suited in grey-green uniforms different than the men in the barn, one piled on top of the other. With a growing dread that weighted her every step, Kitty moved forward, her mind screaming at her that she was wrong, she couldn't be right. This hadn't happened.

Her hand reached forward and, with a heave that stole her breath away, she turned over one of the bodies to see the front.

Outside, her distraught cry startled a flock of nearby birds into early flight.

* * *

Pietro jolted awake.

Damn, when had he even fallen asleep? His body was making a mighty effort to recharge, but despite the fact that it had been hours since he'd first awakened here, he felt no closer to recovery. In fact, he might even feel worse. The tendril of fear he'd felt before came back in full force as he maneuvered into a painful sitting position, propped up against a rock.

A faint buzzing sound distracted him from his pain, and he looked up to the cave entrance, where he saw Kitty Pryde appear like a ghost through the ice door.

Bobby and Angel were instantly in their feet, but they came to abrupt halts at the sight of Kitty's face.

_Damn_, Pietro thought. She looked like she'd been through hell. His eyes drifted to the strap around her shoulder, and the bag she hadn't left with, but when his eyes traveled to her face, she was staring right at him. Something uncomfortable settled in his stomach at her vacant, bereaved stare.

"What is it, Kitty?" asked Bobby. "What did you find?"

Instead of answering him, Kitty crossed the cave with heavy, purposeful steps and stopped in front of Pietro, who schooled his expression into one of calm and eyed her with faint disinterest. "You need something, Pryde?" he croaked, snarky despite his body's best efforts at slowly die on him.

To his surprise, she answered by dropping a rolled up magazine in his lap.

Pietro stared, eyebrows lifted, as he picked it up and unfolded the glossy tabloid. "What the hell is this?" he asked, even as he looked over the bold text. Once, then again.

Slowly, Pietro looked up at Kitty Pryde again, grey eyes narrowed. Surely, she wasn't suggesting…

When she met his gaze, chills danced their way up the limited feeling on his spine. She spoke just as his eyes turned back to the strange lettering, unwilling to take them at face value.

"We're in Poland," she said at last, her voice flat, and even without looking directly at her, Pietro registered her strained pose, the clenching of her fingers at her sides. The tremble of her slight figure, just in front of him, even as she addressed the others.

He felt the heat of glare as if it were a hot brand on his skin. "But Maximoff didn't just run us to a different country," she went on harshly, never looking away from Pietro's face.

"He ran us to a different _time_."

Pietro tossed aside the magazine roughly. "Have you lost your mind, Pryde?" he snarled, before placing a hand to his chest. "Look, I may be amazing, but I cannot – and I repeat, _cannot _– time-travel, do you understand me?" Rage flooded his aching limbs, and somehow, it made him feel better to know he finally had the strength to yell.

"You think just because you found this stupid magazine means, what? We're in the year 1942? You're an idiot. You're all idiots."

Pryde snatched up the knapsack she'd brought back with her, her eyes alight with fury. "Oh, you think you can explain that? Fine, explain all this." She overturned the bag and emptied the contents to the dirt floor, making Pietro jerk back his leg with a hiss of pain.

Out of the bag poured a number of items, including a map, a canteen, a carefully packed portion of dry food and a pistol. Pietro leaned forward, his lips parted as he eyed the gun. Angel and Bobby hovered nearby, their expressions a mixture of horror and uncertainty. They didn't fully believe Pryde either, thought Pietro, but an uncomfortable sense of panic welled in his chest at the sight of the bag's contents.

With as calm a motion as he could muster, Pietro reached forward and picked up the sleek black pistol, which had obviously seen better days. He twirled it in his fingers and pointed it at Angel, one eye squinted in her direction.

"Bang," he said.

The others glared, and Pietro shrugged loftily, palming the pistol as he looked it over. "It's empty," he said, his tone lighter and more unconcerned than he felt. After a few moments of silence, he said in a slightly less unaffected voice, "You got this off a Nazi soldier."

Saying the word out loud put a sour taste in his mouth.

"Yes," Kitty Pryde stooped in front of him, blue eyes serious. "How did you know that?"

Pietro shifted his gaze to her, his lips tight. He tossed the gun aside. "It's a Luger PO8. Magneto kept one around for a long time. He took it off the Nazi who killed his mother." Some perverse part of him enjoyed the uncomfortable squirming of the other two X-Dorks, who didn't seem to like the reminder that Erik Lensherr, their most _beloved_ enemy, had endured more than they'd even fathomed.

Pietro continued grimly, "I'll let you imagine what kind of twisted shit he put that bastard through before he killed him."

Satisfied with their horrified looks, Pietro leaned back as far as he could manage, unwilling to stay within hands reach of Kitty Pryde, who finally backed off and drew an arm over dirty face, her expression dark and blank. She toyed with something in her hand, and as Pietro watched with one wayward eye, she clenched it tightly in her palm before tossing it angrily onto the pile of military supplies.

It was a patch with the SS insignia.

* * *

They slept in the cave that night, with Pietro further away than any of the others. Even though he had kept his silence for the remainder of the evening, not even opening his mouth to protest the lack of food, his mind simmered with anxiety.

_I've run us into Nazi-occupied Poland, _he thought, his arm making an uncomfortable cushion against the cold ground and his body aching.

_And I have no idea how to get home. _


	3. Chapter 3

Author's Note: For any returning readers, thanks for revisiting this story! For anyone new, I would love to hear from you! Enjoy…

Sidenote: Pietro says a lot of really offensive, off-color things in this story, and they are not representative of me in any way. They are Pietro. The end.

* * *

The silence stretched on for a few hours, uncomfortable and heavy like an old wool blanket on Kitty's skin. The cave they'd camped out in was cold, dark and dank, as most caves were, and the only light was that which struggled through the translucent door of ice Bobby had created over the entrance.

Kitty's eyes shifted to Pietro, who lay far off in a corner, on his side with his back turned towards them. Even though she couldn't see his face, the pain was etched in every motion of his body, every clenched muscle. He looked _terrible. _And to be honest, Kitty had never thought he looked all that healthy before. To see him now was more than a little alarming. She'd seen him suffer a lot of physical abuse in battles, but he'd never looked quite like this.

All these thoughts Kitty kept to herself, her busy mind trying to fit them together in a solution, but as usual, Angel gave a voice to her less seemly thoughts. "Okay," the dark-skinned girl slapped her hands on her thighs and stood resolutely. "I'll say it. Maximoff needs to get off his ass and take us back to our time."

"He's hurt," Bobby said quietly, even as he cast a dark look in Pietro's sleeping form.

Angel huffed. "Well, someone needs to tell him to suck it up! We can't stay here, guys! We have to get home. We have to tell people what happened." She swallowed tightly, her jaw clicking into place. "We have to tell people about Evan."

Kitty fought off a tremor as the image of Evan's aunt, Storm, flashed through her brain. "I know that," she managed firmly, lowering her voice a bit and sneaking a peak at Maximoff's unmoving form. "But if he's telling the truth about how he's never done this before, he may not even know how to get us back."

"What's so complicated about it?" Angel folded her arms. "He ran really, really, _really_ fast."

"Which obviously isn't going to happen any time soon," argued Kitty, exasperated. "Look, what Maximoff really needs – "

" – is for everyone to _shut the hell up_!"

Kitty's head jerked up in Pietro's direction just in time to see him struggle to sit up, one crooked arm giving out beneath him and sending him back to the ground. Instinct had her hurrying towards him, but he pulled back with all the fierce distrust of a wild animal.

"Do you idiots honestly believe if I could run _AT ALL that_ I would still be in this god damn cave with you?" He shoved at the ground again, and Kitty felt her heart pound at the immense effort it took, the way he fought to breathe. The debilitating effects of his injuries did nothing to cool his ire.

"In fact," continued Pietro with a hiss, his voice growing progressively louder. "I would rather drop you all in the middle of _Berlin on _Adolf Hitler's_ god damn doorstep_ than take your stupid bitch asses all the way back to New – " _Clink. _

Kitty's hand jumped to her mouth, her heart thumping in her chest as Pietro froze mid-sentence, his own slate grey eyes wide in disbelief. Directly next to his head, a razor sharp piece of ice sat embedded in the rock wall, a thin red scratch on Pietro's cheek running parallel to it. Judging from Pietro's stiff stance, Kitty doubted he'd ever come so close to being hit by a projectile.

Bobby Drake came to a stop in front of Pietro, his fist still icy with frost. Kitty and Angel stood, motionless with disbelief, as he stooped down until he was eye-level with Pietro.

"Do not ever say that again," he told Pietro in low, even tones. "Do not _ever _talk about leaving them here, Maximoff. Because if you do, I will put the next one through your _neck_."

Pietro lifted his eyes to Bobby's. "You don't have the guts, Drake."

"Try me," said the other. The two glared for a long, tense moment before Pietro exhaled noisily, but said nothing else, and Bobby stood up and moved away. With an uncertain glance at Kitty and Angel, he fell heavily to the cave floor and folded his arms on his knees, his gaze distant.

Kitty waited a few moments before speaking, her voice shaking a little more than she'd like, but hey, no one else was offering to take the lead here. It was up to her. "Whether or not we can get back to our time," she said carefully, "we definitely can't stay here. We need a plan."

Angel frowned, the first signs of despair finding their way onto her pretty features. "But – What can we possibly do, Kitty? I mean, we don't have the X-Men. We don't have the Professor. It's just. Us and freaking Maximoff, and he's useless."

"Go kill yourself, you stupid moth," jabbed Pietro dully from his spot.

"Get bent, Maximoff!"

Kitty stepped forward. "Okay, enough!" She waved an arm, and the others fell silent. She took a deep breath before continuing. "Alright, so let's think. We're in Poland. It's 1942. What place was safe in Poland in 1942?" She looked to Bobby and Angel, both of whom stared blankly.

"I think that was, um," Bobby winced sheepishly. "On next semester's syllabus, maybe? I'm … not really sure." Kitty's brows furrowed and she looked to Angel, who snorted loudly.

"Kitty, you know I have no freakin' idea."

"Nowhere is safe in Poland," cut in Pietro at last, as he lifted his head to look at Kitty. "Warsaw fell in '39. The entire country is overrun, and the Allies aren't going to get here any time soon."

"There were rescue forces in Poland in 1940," pointed out Kitty.

"French, mostly, and you've got Soviets to the south," Pietro leaned back against his rock with a sigh and stared at the ceiling. "Good luck with that."

"How did anyone survive all of this?" Angel asked to no one in particular, sitting down heavily on a rock and swatting at the dirt on her face. "It seems like hell." Kitty bit her lip in thought. How _had _people survived?

Her eyes fell on the map from the soldier's bag. Suddenly, a light lifted her heart and she dove for the map, pulling it open and searching over its contents. "I'll tell you how," she said, looking to the others. "They got the heck out and into a neutral country. And you know what? A lot of them did it by going north and crossing the Baltic Sea," Kitty pointed, and her eyes caught a hint of movement as Pietro leaned forward to see the map.

"I'm not exactly sure where we are, but as long as we go north, we'll eventually hit the coast. Then we just find a way across to Sweden, it's not far. Once we're out of German-occupied territory, we'll be able to figure out how to get back to our own time." She looked up and met the skeptical gaze of Pietro.

"You make that sound a hell of a lot easier than it is, Pryde. If it was that simple, there wouldn't have been a whole country's worth of dead Jews."

Kitty frowned. "You think I don't know that? But we're not safe here. At least, in Sweden or some other neutral country, we can gather our wits. Figure something out. Here, we're just sitting ducks."

Angel looked at the map, squinting hard as if that might make it clearer to her. "Sounds good to me," she muttered. "I just hope we're not far."

"We need to get our bearings," Bobby said, and Kitty nodded, standing up as determination surged through her veins. They could do this.

* * *

They could not do this.

Pietro stared dully as Bobby and Angel struggled to follow Kitty's simple instructions, such as stay put, shut up, get out of the way, even though Pryde certainly said all those things in a nicer and much less motivational way than he would've.

"I'll go out and see what I can find," she said to the others, and Pietro raised a brow expectantly. When no protests came from neither Bobby nor Angel, Pietro leaned forward, almost waiting too late to stop Kitty before she was out of the door.

"Are you serious?" he exclaimed, making the threesome pause. When Bobby turned to glare at him, he drew in a deep, all suffering breath. "You've just found out we're in Nazi-occupied Poland, and you're going to send _her _out there?"

"What's the deal, Maixmoff?" snapped Angel.

"Just let me go, it won't be too long," Kitty said, making a move like she was going to bolt, and oh, Pietro knew that look all too well. He ought to have a copyright on it. _She _knew what he was talking about, even if the others were unbelievably slow on the uptake. And she was still willing to go. What an idiot.

"Drake," Pietro addressed him with a narrowed glare. "You might, _at a distance, _be able to pass for a German. And you," he looked to Angel, "would almost certainly be mistaken for a dirty Roma gypsy." He lifted a hand to point at Kitty, who was growing increasingly shifty in her spot.

"But you– _Jewdy McJewerson_ – wouldn't make sixty _feet_ out of this cave before you got rounded up by a bunch of German soldiers and given a one way ticket to Nazi summer camp." He paused. "Ya dig?" Kitty hissed between her teeth, and Pietro leaned back against his rock again, satisfied with her irritation.

"This is not a big deal," Kitty started, but Bobby stepped forward, his hands held up.

"Kitty, he's right."

"If they try to capture me, I can just use my powers!" she protested, and Pietro slapped a hand over his face.

"Oh, right!" He exclaimed in mock surprise. "Because you know, using mutant powers worked out so well for Magneto when _he _was hanging around the Nazis. Yes, Pryde, by all means. Please, do that. See what happens."

Kitty stepped forward with a furious stomp. "I have the best chance of escaping."

"And an even better chance of getting noticed," Pietro growled. "Not that I give a damn what happens to you, because seriously, you can go take a refreshing chemical shower for all I care, " Kitty's face flushed red with anger, and he ignored it, "but I don't have any alternatives for getting out of here, so I need whoever is going to stick their neck out to help move us along to actually live."

Silence filtered into the cave for a long, heavy moment before Kitty straightened her back and glared down at him. "I hate you," she said flatly, to which Pietro responded with a wave of his arm.

"Join the club."

"I think that's enough," Bobby stepped forward, putting a hand on Kitty's shoulder and pulling her away. "Kitty, Angel and I will go out and find a marker of some kind. Something to find on the map." He looked to Pietro, who met his gaze coolly.

"You must need food."

Pietro folded his arms, fighting off a wince as he did so. "How very astute of you, Drake," he said, before continuing on flatly, "_Everyone needs food._"

"I mean," Drake interrupted in with a growl, "You probably burn through a lot of calories on a normal day, right? You must eat a lot. Otherwise you'll just… give out." Pietro steeled his face into an impassive mask, not at all at ease with his potential weaknesses being discussed.

Because it was true. He did have to eat a lot, even though he didn't look it. And he'd never recover without several good meals in him.

"Yes," he said finally, his eye twitching just a bit. "I have to eat a lot. If I don't, my body will shut down on me."

Angel stepped forward and picked up the soldier's empty bag. "Well, I guess we're going on a shopping trip then, then. Kitty, try not to kill Maximoff while we're gone."

"No promises," she said from her pouty little corner, and Pietro rolled his eyes. The other two gathered what little supplies they had and hugged Kitty – a little excessive of a measure, in Pietro's opinion, but whatever gave them the warm fuzzies – and departed through Bobby's ice door.

The cave fell quiet, with just Kitty and Pietro lingering inside. The drip drip noise was back, and Pietro closed his eyes, hoping to dispel the noise from his brain. Obviously, Kitty was trying to do the same, because she sat in determined silence for nearly fifteen minutes before it got the better of her and she jumped up, antsy.

"We need to find any supplies we can," she said, not even looking at Pietro. "Eugh, I don't even have my purse."

"Ah, yes, because I'm sure that's a goldmine of useful items," Pietro said to the ceiling, his sharp features blank. "I mean, just think. If only we had your chapstick to fight the Nazis with." When she didn't answer, he went on. "Or a makeup bag. Or a tampon. Or a ballpoint pen filled with the tears of every Jew who didn't get into an Ivy League school– "

"Shut up, Maximoff," she hissed. Pietro inhaled deeply, his eyes still closed, as he heard her maneuver around the cave noisily, tripping over rocks in the dimness and muttering her little substitute expletives to herself. Suddenly, she whirled to face him. "And you're Jewish, too!"

Pietro cracked open an eye to look at her.

"Yeah, but I don't _look _Jewish. You, though? You might as well have a target shaped like the Star of David painted on your back." He leaned back his head to stare at the ceiling again. "You better hope we're not that far south, Pryde. Because you're not going to make it to the coast."

When she didn't answer, he lifted his head with a grunt and searched for her dim outline against the dark cave wall. She was standing a few feet away, her head low and her chin to her chest as she fought to gain control of her temper. Pietro gave a split-second consideration as to whether or not he had finally said something a little too off-base, but the fleeting nature of it meant he didn't even take a moment to change his facial expression. He simply stared at her, waiting for her to react.

Instead, she turned away from him with a prim little 'hmph!' and began moving through the cave again.

"Do you have anything useful?" she asked after several more minutes. "Empty your pockets, Maximoff. You must have, like, a pocket knife or something, right?"

Pietro sidled her with a stare. "Do I look like the type of guy who carries around a knife, Pryde?"

"Well, Lance does!"

"Lance is an idiot," Pietro stated blandly.

"I wish Lance was here instead of you! At least he would try to help!"

"Pryde," Pietro crossed his legs with a grimace and eyed her critically. "I can assure you that if Lance _were_ here, the only thing he'd try to do is put a baby inside of you."

At this, Kitty shrieked indignantly and stomped away, her tiny feet not making nearly enough impact for her to be taken seriously. She dropped heavily to the floor of the cave and wrapped her skinny arms around her knees, her blue eyes glaring off into the distance with as much heat as she could muster.

After a moment, Pietro reached in his pocket and pulled out the only thing in there – his wallet. He tossed it to the ground and smirked at Kitty. "You wanna know what I have, Pryde?"

"Here, help yourself to my personal valuables. I'm sure Polish meatshops take American Express."

Kitty narrowed her eyes at him without looking in his direction. "Like any of those credit cards are actually yours," she huffed.

Pietro shrugged. "Doesn't really matter now, does it?"

* * *

It was hours – agonizing, stressful and painfully quiet hours – before Bobby and Angel finally returned, and they burst through the ice door panting heavily, arms laden with bags.

"Guys!" Kitty jumped up, relief flooding her. Pietro jerked awake from his spot in the corner, where'd been still and dormant for well over two hours. Kitty yanked them both into a fervent hug before looking to the bags. "What's this?"

"Food!" Angel declared happily, and when Kitty peered in, she saw lots of breads, some vegetables and dried meat.

"Awesome!" Kitty pulled out the food and began sorting it, and Bobby picked up the map spread out on the ground. He searched it for several moments before pointing.

"Hey, this is the sign we saw. I mean, it said this city was nearby. We could see some smoke in the distance." Kitty peered over his shoulder and frowned. _Pulawy_. It was definitely further south than she'd hoped for, though not impossibly so. As she picked up a piece of bread and meat and walked it over to Maximoff, she studied the map.

"Here," she said distractedly, putting the food in his hand as he struggled to wake. He ate voraciously at her side, not talking for a long moment even as she kneeled next to him. "Where are we?" he managed at last, and Kitty pointed. He swallowed and pushed himself forward with a pained grunt.

"Shit," he said, and Kitty nodded. Even though she was still highly annoyed with him from before – what a total jerk he was – she agreed with his displeasure. It was a really long way to the northern coast.

"Should we go east? Try to get into Soviet territory?"

"Hell no," Maximoff chomped down the last bit of his meat ration. "Even if we made it, you think the Soviets are going to take care of us? Besides, if I remember correctly, the Germans attack that territory at some point and flush out all the Jewish refugees. We're better off heading north. The war never goes that far."

"How do you know all of this?" Kitty couldn't help but ask. "I'm pretty sure we've had history together for the last two years and I've actually seen you in class like," she paused to think. "Twice. Or maybe like, never."

At her side, Pietro raised a brow at her. "Well, astoundingly enough, Pryde, the very teachers you hold in such high esteem have been trolling you all these years. You see, you thought all that information was coming directly from their education-driven souls, but in fact, an endless array of knowledge actually lies in something called _books." _

Kitty snapped the map closed. "Can you just answer a question for once instead of being a jerk?"

"I did answer your question, Pryde," he said leaning away from her. "You just don't know how to listen to anything other than words."

"That doesn't make any sense," she said, irritated, but Pietro simply shrugged and continued to eat. Unwilling to be anywhere near him for a moment longer, Kitty stood and moved away, carefully arranging the map to study it further as she ate. She'd been absolutely famished, but she knew not to eat too quickly, so she took her time and didn't eat everything she had, instead rationing it and putting it aside. After some effort, she got the others to do the same.

"We don't know when we're going to get more food, and we've got a long way to go," she said, and the others nodded reluctantly.

"Yeah," Bobby stretched out on the ground and reclined sleepily. "We probably won't luck out like that again." At Kitty's questioning look, Angel spoke up.

"We found all that food in like, a basement or something. It had a heavy lock on it, but Bobby froze it off. It was filled with stuff. We just took what we could carry."

Kitty blinked slowly. "You mean, like… this stuff came from, like, a supply bunker?"

To her side, Bobby sat back up again, the color draining from his face as Pietro spoke from his spot far away. "Please," said the speedster with exaggerated patience. "Please tell me you idiots did not raid military supplies."

"It – It didn't have any markers on it," Bobby started, but Kitty had already grabbed the burlap sacks and, after a moment's hesitation, brushed off the heavy, dark dirt with her hand, only to reveal a distinctive symbol at the bottom, one that sent chills down her spine.

"Oh, god," she whispered, looking to the others. "We've got to get out of here, we've got to – "

"_Schau hier!" _The gruff voice sounded from outside and it struck Kitty's heart like a jolt of electricity, sending shockwaves of fear into her limbs, icy and hot at the same time. Shadows appeared on the other side of the foggy ice door, several at once, and the voices grew in volume.

Behind Kitty, Pietro struggled to his feet and staggered forward, grabbing onto a rock just as one of the men on the other side of the door motioned against it. After a moment, something red began a rapid blink, and the shadows dispersed in a hurry.

"Get away from the door!" Pietro shouted, and Kitty turned sharply, throwing her arms over her head just as the explosive shattered the ice door with a deafening boom and the force shoved her off her feet.

The ringing in her ears, the pieces of ice and dirt flying around her. Those were the things that enveloped her as she realized that Pietro Maximoff just might be right.

She wouldn't make it to the coast.


	4. Chapter 4

Author's Note: Hello new readers! I'm sorry this took me so long. Real life has been quite exhausting lately. Thanks for sticking with me. (: Glad to see old readers returning! You guys are awesome. :D

* * *

Debris and ice sprayed the the cave, sending each of the teen mutants to the floor as the blast echoed in the confined space. Her ears ringing, Kitty managed to gather herself long enough to stand again, her heart jumping into her throat as she saw a group of uniformed men storm through the entrance.

"Everyone grab me!" she shouted, reaching out a hand to Bobby and Angel, who immediately took her hand. Across the cave, Pietro struggled to his feet. He and Kitty met eyes for a single terrifying moment before he snatched her hand, fingers locking around hers as Kitty pulled them all at the cave wall.

They phased through the back of the cave and fell a few feet, each landing hard on the grassy knoll opposite the cave's entrance. Bobby helped Kitty and Angel up just as the soldiers rounded the rocky structure and pointed, guns raised.

"Run!" Bobby shoved the girls forward just as the soldiers began their attack. Bullets sprayed through the air in a deafening assault, and Kitty screamed, throwing her hands over her head as the foursome ran blindly into the forest. Trees splintered and burst under the gunfire, and the earth jumped high around their feet as it was pierced. The soldiers followed them with fierce shouts, only pausing long enough to aim their guns, but the teens dove into a thick grove of trees and found a path through.

"Whoa!" Angel skidded to a stop just as a group of soldiers appeared in front of them, diverted from the others, guns raised. "GET DOWN!" The four teens split, diving behind trees as gunfire rained down on them. Kitty tucked against a thick, old oak, her hands over her ears and a sob choking her.

_Oh, god, we're going to die out here! _

She looked across the trail to Angel, who cried out from where she sat hunched under the ground, a bullet grazing so close to her exposed arm that for a moment, she thought was hit. "What do we do?" she screamed across the chaos to Kitty, her dark eyes wide with fear.

Kitty glanced up, her chest pounding as she spotted Bobby, barely out of harm's way, and Pietro, who leaned heavily against a rock and winced at every bullet that bounced off abused earth around him. Seeing her friends curled up there, weak and tired and so close to death suddenly renewed Kitty's body with energy and purpose.

_No, _she decided with grim determination. _We're not going to die today. _

Xx

Pietro ducked against another bout of gunfire and cursed his ailing body. If he had his normal speed right now, he'd have dispatched these soldiers before anyone could even blink. Now he was a sitting duck like the rest of these losers. Figures.

"_Es! Nehmen Sie das Mädchen_!"

At the soldier's shout, Pietro's eyes widened and he turned against the rock, peering just above it in time to see Kitty Pryde rush by with a hellish look of resolve. The soldiers turned their guns to her, but she set her brow and forced herself to phase through them.

The growing look of panic on the soldier's faces as she approached at full speed was almost enough to bring Pietro to a standing ovation. Then, without slowing, Kitty Pryde leaped at the two nearest soldiers and tackled them both to the ground.

The three bodies disappeared completely under the earth. When Kitty slowly reappeared above the earth, she left the two soldiers behind, trapped beneath the dirt. Some parts of their fingers twitched above ground. Pietro didn't blame the remaining soldiers when the recoiled in horror.

"_Meine gotte_," one of the other soldiers whispered in alarm. They unleashed a barrage of gunfire once more, but now their nerves were frayed, and Kitty rushed forward and pushed another straight into the ground, leaving him trapped underneath. Pietro seized that moment to emerge from his hiding spot, and with one painfully exhaustive burst of his powers, he snatched a rifle from the nearest soldier, knocked him in the throat with it and then bashed in his head. Blood sprayed across his front, tiny flecks jumping onto his cheek, but Pietro ignored it. Instead, he turned the gun up to the nearest three soldiers.

One, two, three dead.

A shout to his right made him turn sharply, and he looked to see Angel grappling in mid-air with a soldier who had her by the ankle, her wings beating furiously in an attempt to escape him. He raised a gun to shoot her out of the air, but a wicked sharp ice spear pierced his neck instead, impaling the soldier to a tree where he dangled like a morbid ornament.

Angel dropped out of the air with a soft cry and Bobby rushed to her, helping her off the ground as he cast a single pained look to the man he'd killed, remorse etched in his features. Pietro turned his face away, jaw clenched. God damn Bobby Drake and his moral dilemmas. It was a small consolation to Pietro that he'd actually done what needed to be done.

Because, as Pietro looked around the wooded area and realized nearly all of the soldiers who'd attacked them were dead or slowly suffocating underground thanks to Kitty's assault, it was either kill or be killed in places like this. Maybe Bobby Drake had never had to learn that lesson from his cozy family home in Boston, but this was war.

"Are they gone?" asked Angel, swallowing thickly as she raised a trembling hand to her blood-splattered face. Kitty Pryde stood far ahead of the others, her back to them.

Bobby glanced up at Kitty's still figure. "I think so," he said softly, but a voice startled them all in response.

"_Sie werden alle bereuen! Sie kämpfen nicht das Deutsche Reich!_"

The four teens turned sharply at the voice, but it was Kitty who spotted him first. One of her wild attacks had left a German officer halfway embedded in a tree, his chest pierced by a slim trunk. Bits of blood dotted the areas around his neck, and when his spot, he gurgled thickly. Still, he continued his vicious verbal assault as Kitty moved to stand in front of him.

Her own face was strangely blank, and she didn't shake like Angel. As Pietro watched, she moved to stand directly in front of the man, who only continued to spit venom at her with every vile curse and threat. Even as Pietro, Angel and Bobby moved to stand behind Kitty, the German's vicious tirade remained exclusively for her.

"_Lassen Sie sich in den Deutschen und wissen, dass jede Strafe, die Sie empfangen, zu gut für Sie sein! Gerade du, du verdammte Hure dreckiger Jude!_"

At this, Kitty's still form shifted, her blue eyes shifting over the belligerent man's disgusted features with a peculiar sense of detachment. Pietro's jaw clenched as he watched her breathe in every insult, every hateful jab at her heritage until finally, he stepped forward without realizing he was doing so until he was shoulder to shoulder with Kitty.

"What's he saying?" asked Angel timidly from behind them. Kitty didn't answer, so Pietro did.

"Nothing worth repeating," he said evenly.

Then he raised the gun he'd taken from the soldier and ended the vicious tirade with a single bullet, causing Kitty to jerk slightly next to him, her hollow gaze moving to her blood-splattered shoes.

"We need to get going," Pietro tossed the empty gun to the ground. "Someone is going to come looking for these soldiers." At his side, Kitty finally came back to life, wiping at her face just once with a small sniffle before she breathed in deeply and looked up, her eyes clear.

"Maximoff is right. We need to gather supplies from … these guys," she cleared her throat. "And then we need to go."

"But where?" Bobby frowned.

Kitty moved back towards the cave. "The plan is the same. We make it to the coast, we get out of these country, and maybe we'll all make it back home. Check the soldiers for anything useful we can carry with us."

Pietro raised a brow from where he stood. "Yeah, but good luck finding any that Pryde here didn't gopher into the ground." Kitty made an indignant noise, her expression instantly cross once more. Pietro secretly congratulated himself on forcing her to return to her true form.

"Hey," Pietro pointed at her. "That was a _compliment. _Burying those soldiers was the most useful thing I've ever seen you do." Sensing her discomfort, Pietro straightened from his spot and shook his head at her, his intense disgust obvious as he spoke.

"You X-Men always think it's so black and white, don't you?"

He turned away without waiting for a response.

* * *

The group gathered what remained of their supplies from the cave and hurried out, each now sporting carry sacks they'd managed to drum up from the soldiers. Kitty held steadfast onto the map, secretly grateful for something to concentrate on, something tangible to hold.

Thinking back to what had just happened was almost enough to stop her in her tracks, but she had to keep moving on. She had to forget the faces of those men, just for now. She could give them her proper grief later, when her friends – and Maximoff – were out of danger. Right now, she couldn't let herself spare any of her attention.

"We need to find the Vistula River," she pointed to the map. "We can follow that all the way to the coast." The group paused and looked around the seemingly never ending expanse of trees. "And… I have no idea what direction that is."

"Leave it up to me!" Angel shed her bag and her jacket, letting her wings beat solidly for a moment before she leaped up into the air and disappeared into the tree line. When she came back a moment later, she pointed east. "I think I spotted it. This way."

After an hour of walking, the dense foliage gave way to a clearing, and just down the valley from that was a large, rushing river where the spray of water rushed up to meet them in chilly specks. Kitty looked up at the sky, only just now visible. They oriented themselves north and continued on, moving at varying speeds and in no particular order.

The walk was quiet.

Without the distraction of conversation, Kitty let her gaze wander over the area as they passed. How strange, she thought, to be in such a beautiful place with so much hate and ugliness tainting it. She and the others had left a dozen men dead back at the cave, but it was hard to imagine such a thing happening in a place as tranquil as this. Even deep in the forest, they encountered towering walls of rock, some with water rushing over the side in natural falls.

Some featured deep drop offs that dove into deep valleys of forest, and when the line of trees occasionally broke away and revealed the distant landscape, picturesque mountains appeared against the outline of the fading sun. The sight of how grand and large they were made Kitty think on how petty humans and their wars really were. Mountains didn't care what was going on down below. They simply were.

The teens walked for miles, unbothered by anyone and not seeing any towns or villages. They stopped a few times to rest or eat on their limited rations, but they rarely spoke. Kitty spent the first few stops sneaking glances at Maximoff, checking for any signs of ailment or weakness, but he stubbornly kept away from all the others. When he did at last catch her watchful stare, he sneered at her and looked away.

_Fine, _thought Kitty with uncharacteristic venom. _Let him collapse. _

Finally, the sun dropped too low in the sky to offer anything other than shadows to the dense forest, and Kitty called for the others to stop. The temperature had taken a drastic drop, and suddenly she wished it hadn't been nearing summer time back home in New York. The wind was howling, particularly near the river, and the air was positively icy.

Kitty wrapped her arms around herself and looked to Bobby. "Hey, think you can make something that will block the wind? Some kind of shelter?" He nodded, offering her a kind smile before he glanced around and found a tree. With an intense look of concentration, he meticulously assembled an ice shelter with the base of the tree at its center, including a low entry way.

"Sweet," Angel clambered inside, but Maximoff simply stood with his features pinched in blatant contempt.

"It's freezing as shit outside and you want us to sleep in an _igloo_?" he asked, to which Angel quickly replied by sticking her head of the small door.

"You're welcome to sleep outside, Maximoff!" she chirped happily before ducking back inside. Bobby shot Maximoff a smirk before climbing inside, while Kitty ignored him completely and did the same. If Maximoff wanted to be a big baby, more power to him. All of this was his fault anyway, and Kitty wasn't sure she would ever get over that.

To no one's surprise, Maximoff entered the ice shelter a moment later, his eyes narrowed deeply, daring anyone to say anything. He sat off to the side as the other three created a small fire, which Bobby vented through a small hole in the top of the shelter. "Don't worry, I can keep it from melting," he told them with a confident nod.

"See," said Kitty with an attempt at a smile. "This isn't so bad." She spread out the sleeping bag she'd lifted from the soldier and Angel laid hers next to Kitty's. Bobby closed off the entrance, and the security of being out of the open comforted Kitty a little.

She reached across her sleeping bag and curled her fingers around Angel's, who returned the motion with a gentle squeeze. The sleeping bags were thin and not all that comfortable, but it was certainly better than lying on the cold, dirty ground, and Kitty's body was too exhausted to care anyway.

Angel fell asleep quickly, her wings unfurled and curled around her body for added warmth, but Kitty shivered continuously even as the night wore on. Her thin cardigan simply wasn't holding up to the impending Polish winter.

"You want my sweater?"

She glanced up at the sound of Bobby's quiet voice. The outline of his face looked blue against the moonlight as it struggled through the translucent ice. The fire had dwindled down to embers and the ice shelter was dim. "Nah," she whispered, to avoid waking Angel – and possibly Maximoff, who was curled up on his sleeping bag and hadn't spoken in an hour. "You need it."

"Actually," Bobby offered her a good-natured smile, "I'm pretty good at dealing with the cold. I can regulate my body temperature to a certain point." He slipped off the sweater, leaving him in his undershirt. Kitty accepted it with a sheepish smile, and when she slipped it on, it was still warm from Bobby's torso. She instantly felt her body relax into its welcome heat.

"Thanks," she whispered, snuggling back into her sleeping bag. "You're awesome."

Bobby's cheeks colored a little, but he smiled and looked away, eyes on his hands. He wasn't lying down, but sitting up on his sleeping bag with his arms around his knees. "It's no big deal," he murmured. There was a long moment of quiet before Kitty spoke again.

"Hey," she shifted onto her back. "Do you remember when we went ice-skating?" She bit the inside of her cheek after asking, because something felt like maybe she shouldn't bring it up, but Bobby chuckled quietly and nodded.

"Yeah," he glanced at her dark silhouette. "You told me you missed New Jersey… and you wanted it to snow." He glanced sidelong at her and said genuinely, "It was nice."

Kitty smiled a little and turned her attention to a loose thread on the sweater. "Yeah," she agreed quietly. "It was." Bobby made a soft sound like a sigh.

"I'd give anything to be back at that night," he said wistfully. His face colored with heat, and he glanced nervously at Kitty once before continuing in a rush, "You know, just back at the mansion."

"Right," Kitty said quickly. "Well, good night." She turned away, her eyes blinking a few times in the semi-darkness before they adjusted to the strange opaque blue light of their shelter. At last, she fell asleep.

* * *

A feral grin spread over Pietro Maximoff's features as he waited until he was certain Kitty Pryde was asleep. Then he sat up in his sleeping bag and leaned forward with painstaking effort at slowness, giving Bobby Drake a long moment of inspection before he said lowly –

"Don't you have a girlfriend, Drake?"

Bobby's head shot up from where it had been balanced thoughtfully against his hand. He narrowed his eyes at Pietro and turned away, moving to go to sleep. "Of course I do," he muttered. Pietro made a thoughtful noise in response.

"Oh, yeah," he smirked. "Good ole' Rogue. She's a gem, alright." Bobby visibly tensed in his bag, his fingers curled on the edge of the fabric in an obvious attempt to ignore Pietro. He said nothing, so Pietro felt obligated to continue.

"Can't really blame you for flirting, though. Must be a real kick in the nads to have a girlfriend you can't even touch," Pietro snickered. "Especially since if you ever _did _try to stick your dick in her, she'd end up outside making snow angels while you were on the ground, looking like one of those victims from _The Ring_."

"That's it!" Bobby launched himself across the shelter at Pietro, but the speedster ducked out of the way and held up a wiggling finger.

"Ah, ah, ah, Drake! Don't wake the girls up! They've had s_uch _a hard day!"

To Pietro's great amusement, Bobby looked to the sleeping girls and fell back heavily on his bag, his potent glare finding Pietro even in the dim lighting of the shelter. He scowled deeply before falling back on to his sleeping bag, body turned purposefully away from Pietro.

"That's right, Drake," Pietro taunted from where he reclined on his own sleeping bag. "Spoon someone while you can." He waved his fingers at the ceiling. "Honestly, I don't even know why you _want _to go back to New York. Stay here and get laid. Might do you some good."

Bobby's angry huff was the last thing he heard before bed, and honestly, it was more comforting than all those bedtime stories Magneto never told him.

* * *

Author's Note: Updates will come more quickly soon, I promise. And for those of you re-reading, some of these chapters won't have changed much at all. I'm simply re-writing them to better my writing overall. Thanks for reading!


	5. Chapter 5

Author's Note: Duude, I am so excited for new readers! Thank you so much to anyone and everyone who is reading this story. And for **Requiem17** – Writing Pietro's dialogue is hands down my favorite part of this story, so I'm glad you're enjoying it! I often laugh out loud at work while I'm thinking about him. My co-workers think I'm crazy.

* * *

One of the greatest troubles of Kitty Pryde's childhood had been a single reoccurring nightmare.

From the time she was a little girl, she'd dreamt over and over again of the ability to fly. These dreams were always splendid in the beginning, and no matter how the years passed, the dream always started the same way. Kitty's dream self running at full-sprint and diving into the sky, where an amazing gust of energy carried her up, far into the sky. The real Kitty hated heights, but in her dreams, she flew higher and higher and never felt afraid.

In one dream, she soared above a line of trees, feeling freer and lighter than she'd ever known. It was an intoxicating kind of happiness. For a short time.

But always, always in the dream, Kitty began to doubt herself. _How can I fly? _Dream Kitty wondered. _What if I can't really fly at all? _

And then, like the switching of a light, Kitty's smooth, amazing dream shifted into a nightmare of the worst kind. She would falter in the sky, and sometimes she would fall, fall from high above to the ground, where she screamed all the way through her descent until she crashed with such blinding, fearful pain that she knew nothing else in the world.

Other times, she simply landed, but the agony of staying grounded was almost more overwhelming than the fear of crashing. She would run and jump into the air, but nothing would happen. Nothing carried her. And she knew, even in the dream turned nightmare, that she would never fly again because she had dared to wonder how such a glorious thing had happened.

Kitty wasn't sure which ending to the dream was worse – the crash or the crushing weight of being tethered to the earth forever, after having known what it was like to live in the sky. Either way, she always awoke from those instances with a strange mixture of relief and sadness.

And for the rest of the day that followed, her heart was heavy. Because she remembered the brilliant exuberance of flight, but she also could not cut out the memory of the fear.

The day dawned early, bright and cold.

Sitting up in her sleeping bag, Kitty took in her surroundings with a quiet huff, one hand rubbing blearily at her eye. Bobby was awake next, but Kitty didn't feel like talking, so she pretended to study the map. Their path was pretty straightforward – figuratively speaking – and inspection of it was unnecessary at this point. They had no option but to move on. Still, it made her feel better to have something physical to hold on to.

As long as she had this map, she knew where they were heading. And for now, that was good enough.

"Ready to go?" asked Bobby as the others stirred. Kitty nodded and folded the map, placing it in her back before she moved to tug off his sweater. He stopped her. "Keep it," he said with a smile. "You need it more than I do."

With a quiet nod of thanks, Kitty pulled the sweater back on and ducked out of the shelter. She hadn't imagined last night that the morning would be so hard. Waking up to know that yesterday was not simply one of her nightmares was more crushing than she could have imagined.

Evan was really dead. Going back to sleep and praying for a better morning to wake to would not change that.

The four teens had little to share between them for breakfast, and as they moved on, even Pietro was quiet. There wasn't enough energy to go around for idle chatter, not as they trekked through the forest and pushed through thick groves of trees, much of which was not on a footpath of any kind.

Unfortunately, this left Kitty alone with her thoughts. At first, it seemed enough to not think of Evan – or Storm, or Professor Xavier, or any of the others they'd have to face when they got back home. Like Kurt, almost certainly Evan's best friend in the mansion. Kitty's heart clenched at the thought.

But then her mind strayed from Evan to the German soldiers, the one they'd left dead or suffocating under the earth. They might've made it home to their families, in another timeline.

Kitty fought with herself not to be sorry, but she was. They were soldiers. They were doing their jobs, and from what she'd read in her books, a lot of Germans didn't share the wild, radical beliefs of the Nazi party. It wasn't their fault they'd been drawn into this world, and Kitty had killed them anyway. Was that all it took for her to set aside her morals? A mere split second of danger?

_No, _she thought firmly. Her life had been in mortal danger a thousand times with the X-Men, and she had never killed anyone. Not even one of Magneto's lackeys. But here – it was so different. It hurt her heart. Perhaps it went back to losing Evan. They'd never lost anyone close to them with the X-Men.

Not yet, anyway.

It was distinctly possible, Kitty decided as she stumbled over a particularly large rock due to her lack of attention, that her Jewish heritage made her feel more antagonistic than usual. She'd grown up hearing horror stories of this era more than any other. The entire world had. And now they were here, living it like a literal hell, and what had she done? Added to the body count.

She thought back to the German officer, the one who had shrieked at her from the tree, calling her every name he could think of to defame her heritage. He was not among those men who were simply doing their job, she rationalized. He believed her to be inferior. Beneath him. Impaired.

The landscape stretched before them, and even though the wind was bitter cold and the forest stole away much of the sunlight, insistent pockets of gold warmth pressed through the branches overhead and occasionally, Kitty was able to take comfort in it as they passed through.

The area was beautiful, and Kitty wished she had the energy to enjoy it. Anything to make her feel warm and hopeful again. The river they followed so faithfully spread wide in some places and narrowed in others, but they stayed far enough from the edge to avoid the cool spray of water rushing over the rocks that jutted from the river's bottom.

The day passed without incident.

Kitty and the others ate what was left of their food, and Bobby created another ice shelter, which they all climbed inside of after dark without complaint. As they all lay down to go sleep, the chatter of woodland creatures and the shifting of branches in the way gave way to the clamor of tank battle in the distance. Distant gunfire rang so constant and loud, it reminded Kitty of rain pounding on a glass window.

"It sounds pretty far away," volunteered Bobby of the noise.

Everyone simply nodded and fell asleep, with Pietro lying further away than anyone else.

* * *

Thanks to Pietro's wicked fast metabolism, he'd only managed to get super drunk once – and that was with _quite _a bit of effort on his part – but he'd never bothered to repeat the experiment again, because the next day, he had a hangover that felt like it would quite literally kill him.

Today was worse than that.

He dragged behind the others like a lame animal, never breathing a word of his pain. It wasn't as if those X-Dorks could help, and even if they could, he would have a _parasitic twin_ grow out of his abdomen before he'd even look to those idiots for a Tylenol.

The others had grown blissfully quiet, but Pietro couldn't have spoken up even if he'd wanted. The effort it took to stand and push one foot in front of the other had his teeth clenched tight.

"Are you okay, Maximoff?"

His gaze turned slowly to see Kitty standing a few feet in front of him, staring in his direction with those big blue eyes of hers, so filled with concern. _What a sheep._

Pietro straightened as much as he could managed and sidled her with a glare. "Aside from the fact that being stuck with you is making my IQ drop, I am _splendid_." He watched as Kitty rolled her eyes and waved him off with a dismissive motion of her hand.

"Fine," she muttered.

"Fine," he mimicked in his girliest voice. Not his best retort, but he was pretty proud to wrap his mind around the concept of speech at the moment. Everything else was extra.

Continuing with the grueling effort of walking, Pietro kept himself awake by concentrating heavily on his feet. One foot. Two feet. One foot. Two feet. One foot –

He stumbled, but – lo and behold – Kitty had already called for the others to stop. Pietro collapsed against a rock and tossed a nasty glare at the others, not at all above actually hissing at them like a snake to keep them from coming too close.

Kitty watched him from her spot, where she leaned heavily on a tree, but it was that slutty moth who spoke.

"You look like shit, Maximoff," said Angel.

Pietro turned his narrowed gaze to her slowly. "Shouldn't you be on a _pole_ somewhere?"

Angel jumped at him with an angry shriek, but Kitty snatched her arm and pulled her back. "Hey, come on guys, give it a rest! Look," she released Angel, who glared in response to Pietro's bored stare. "We're all just a little tense because we're hungry." Moving over to Pietro, who pulled all his limbs close to his body like an anxious starfish, Kitty stooped to her knees and fished around in her bag. She pulled out one of the pistols they'd taken off the soldiers.

"Maybe we should try to hunt. We can use this gun," she said, turning it over in her hand without bothering to hide her distaste. Angel gleefully agreed.

"Yeah, there's got to be deer or something around here we can hunt, right?"

Pietro secretly wondered if it was possible to get his eyes stuck in his brain if he rolled them as deeply as he wanted in that instant. God, he was going to die surrounded by complete morons. Not that he'd come to expect anything different in the last few years.

When he looked to Bobby, he realized that, for once, they were of like mind. Bobby bit his lip and gently took the gun from Kitty. "You can't hunt deer with these," he said, in a much more patient way than Pietro would've. "Or anything, for that matter. It's a pistol, and not even a good one."

"So?" Angel folded her arms. "A gun's a gun, right?"

Pietro finally leaned forward, physically unable to hold back any more. "You would have an easier time _beating_ a deer to death with this than shooting it," he said flatly.

"Really?" asked Kitty, her brows furrowed. "That's so dumb. What is this gun even good for, then?"

"Oh, I don't know," Pietro said, as though he had to really think about it. And then he pointed at her - "Killing Jews, probably."

Kitty's face instantly shifted into one of deep disdain. "You are such an ass!" she snapped, before jumping up and storming off. Angel followed close behind with a sneer.

"Go kill yourself, Maximoff," she hissed before following Kitty's lead. Pietro leaned tiredly against the rock that kept him slightly vertical and put one exhausted arm behind his head.

"Way ahead of you," he muttered so only he could hear.

* * *

The following day of travel passed uneventfully. Everyone went to bed hungry and tired, but the clatter of distant warfare, never far enough for their liking, kept them awake most of the night.

* * *

Angel turned her face up to the sky as they walked. "Why couldn't my mutant power be the ability to produce bacon on command?" she asked on the fourth day.

"Because if you could make anything, it would be a _burrito_," Pietro answered.

* * *

Sometime in the middle of the day, Kitty's progress was arrested by the sound of a heavy thud behind her. She stopped in her tracks and turned around. At first, she wasn't sure what had made the noise. Then, at last, she realized Pietro was no longer behind them.

"Maximoff?" she called out, turning in a full circle. Angel and Bobby halted up ahead. "Maxi – Oh, crap. Guys, come here!" The three teens hurried to Pietro, who was slumped over in a bush, exhausted beyond any hint of awareness. They worked together to pull his limp body out of the bush and onto the bank of the river.

"He needs food," Kitty murmured, her aching shoulders hunching forward. For the last few days, she'd stubbornly ignored Pietro and his peevish behavior, in the hopes that he'd come around and act civil. That had been, needless to say, a fruitless endeavor.

However, in the process of doing so, she'd completely neglected his growing weakness. "Maximoff!" she tried to stir him, but he only grumbled faintly, eyes closed. "He's conscious," she breathed a sigh of relief and pulled her arms around him to help him sit up off the ground. It was a real testament to his depleted strength that he didn't push her away.

"We have to do something," Kitty said fearfully, because her natural instinct of caring for the injured superseded her annoyance. For now. "He needs food. We've got to help him!" Bobby came to stand next to her and rubbed his face tiredly.

"What're we supposed to do, Kitty? None of us have any food. I mean – " he paused suddenly, his gaze turned in the direction of the river. "Wait – Wait, guys. We are so s_tupid!" _

Angel appeared. "What? Who's stupid?"

"The river!" Bobby hurried away from them and peered down at one particularly deep strip of water. "I can fish!" Without waiting for the others to catch on, he paused to gather his strength. Then, with a forceful burst of his powers, he froze a section of the river and lifted it away. He let it melt with one great collapse on the grassy river bank, and out of it flopped a few writhing fish.

Angel shrieked and jumped away, but Kitty was already on her feet. She practically tackled Bobby. "You are brilliant!" she decreed.

And so they set to work.

By the time the fish was cooked, Pietro was slumped over again, not speaking and breathing only shallow breaths. Kitty stooped next to him and tried to jostle him awake. "Maximoff! Maximoff, wake up, we have food for you!" She gave him one particularly rough shake. "Wake up or I'm telling Magneto!"

Pietro jolted awake, his grey eyes wide.

Smirking only a little, Kitty shoved the freshly campfire-fried fish into his hand. "Eat," she demanded, and Pietro took one small bite before finding enough to strength to sit up.

"That was _low_, Pryde…" he grumbled, and if Kitty didn't know any better, she might've thought he sounded proud.

* * *

The crew spent a half hour eating and gathering their energy, and by the end of it, Pietro felt unbelievably more alert and aware. He wasn't sure what kind of fish this was (hell, it could have been goldfish for all he knew), but if he had to give it a name, he'd call it the _best fucking fish ever_, because it was the only thing he'd eaten in three days.

He looked up to see Kitty watching him, her hands brushing off the last crumbs from her meal.

"Better?" she inquired with a smirk.

Pietro rolled his eyes. "Mind your own business," he muttered, with no real venom at all.

* * *

Having access to some kind of food made their arduous journey quite a bit more tolerable. Pietro remained at the back of the line, Kitty noticed, and he seemed annoyed whenever she sent a nervous glance back at him. Still, he didn't insult anyone for the rest of the day (a whopping three hours, a new record) and that night, he fell right asleep without causing an issue or doing what he'd done the night before, which was fill Bobby's sleeping bag with ants.

The next day, they fished again and ate a good meal, combined with some nuts Kitty had found ("Obligatory joke about Drake only just now knowing what nuts look like," said Pietro over breakfast), so the walk didn't seem nearly so bad. In fact, Kitty dared to hope they were ahead of schedule. Everything seemed to be working so well for them. No one had spotted them and their path along the river had been largely undisturbed.

Nothing had obstructed them since the soldiers. That is, until the river they'd so faithfully followed for the last several miles disappeared off the nice, flat earth and dropped some seventy feet in a roiling, angry waterfall.

"Hey Pryde," Pietro glanced over the edge. "Wanna' go swimming?"

Kitty turned her dark glare in his direction, her shoes definitely further away from the cliff's edge than everyone else's. The land they'd traversed so far had been relatively flat, but now the river moved into a waterfall that continued the river far, far below where they stood. Rows of trees lined the craggy earthen edges for what looked like a hundred miles.

"Maybe we can go just go around. Find a better way to get down to the river again," suggested Bobby.

Pietro made a face. "Do you have any idea how long that'll take, Drake? We'll lose a whole day, at _least._ If we can even find a better way down."

"Well, I know how I'm getting down," Angel said with a flourish of her wings. She jumped into the air and hovered next to them. "Sorry, Kitty. I'd carry you, but I'm not really strong. You'd probably just go – " she made a whistling noise, followed by a _spat. _Kitty's face colored green.

"Thanks for the visual, Angel," she managed shakily.

Bobby peered over the edge of the waterfall, where the river rushed over the edge and continued on, but not before landing in a group of pointy, unfriendly looking rocks. A cave also appeared to loom behind the falls, tall and dark. "Maybe I can make a set of ice stairs," he said, looking to the other two. "We can walk them down the falls to the ground."

Kitty bit her lip. "No offense, Bobby, but walking down a bunch of _ice _doesn't really sound safe." Pietro secretly agreed with her – hey, he wasn't crazy about heights either – but they couldn't think of any better options. Stairs of ice, it is.

Angel flew out ahead of them, completely at ease with the height as she fluttered around, watching as Bobby stepped forward first and put out both hands. He constructed the first few steps and then moved forward, taking the descent at the front. After he'd progressed another few steps, Pietro moved up behind him.

"Stay close to me," said Bobby. "I don't know how long the steps behind me will last."

_Comforting, _thought Pietro with no small amount of irritation. "Keep shit like that to yourself from now on," he told Bobby from behind him, his heart pounding as he tried not to look down the length of the ugly drop to the rocky river below. "Or at least, tell us before we get on your staircase of death."

At the end of the line, Kitty moved with painstakingly slow steps. As she moved further down the stairs, spray from the river jumped at her back, making her arms and legs feel tingly and less stable. Not that her knees weren't already jelly-fied enough for a PB&amp;J.

_One step, _she chanted to herself. _Two step. Three step. Four step._

She chanced a peek down. _Ohmygodohmygodohmygod. _Ahead of her, Pietro moved on, but he came to a sudden stop when Bobby paused in front of him and turned narrowly to look over Pietro's shoulder. "Crap," he muttered darkly, before calling out. "Kitty!"

Pietro turned to look in the direction of Bobby's gaze and instantly spotted the source of his distress. Kitty Pryde, nearly ten steps behind them on the ice stairs, frozen to her spot. And not because of the ice, har har. She was rooted as a hundred year old tree, and she didn't look like she was going a_nywhere, _not for a single damn thing.

"She's gotta move," Bobby said to Pietro. "I can't keep up the stairs that far back for very long. Not while I'm concentrating on these."

Pietro's insides raged, but he turned very slowly, very carefully back to Kitty. She stood, petrified, with her arms extended and her fingers clenched in claw-like positions at her sides. _God damn it, Pryde! _He thought vehemently, before taking a deep breath and motioning to her. Kitty's eyes darted up to his, wide and terrified.

"Come on, Pryde," he said as gently as he could manage, which was, admittedly, not very much considering his great amount of irritation and, oh yes, fear. "You can't stay there, Pryde. The sooner you move, the sooner you can get off this thing and back on the ground."

Her blue eyes watered, and the oversized sweater Bobby had given her sloped off of one shoulder of her shivering form. When she didn't move or respond, Pietro huffed. "Pryde," he said, drawing her name out in warning. "You need to _come on." _And then, because he was already annoyed, he added heatedly, "For god's sake, you're one of the only people in the world that could survive a fall like this! Get a move on it!"

"That doesn't mean I'm not still scared, Maximoff!" she shrieked in reply.

"Christ, woman! Just grow a pair and WALK!"

Bobby scowled behind him. "This isn't helping, Maximoff!" he growled from his spot. Pietro barely restrained himself from dragging his fingernails down his face in desperation. Finally, he moved back up a step, and then another, edging closer to Kitty.

He extended a hand to her.

"Take my hand, Pryde. I will not let you fall."

Kitty looked to him, her chest heaving under her sweater, her throat working over a hard swallow as she eyed him. "Don't play with me, Maximoff," she squeaked, and Pietro sighed heavily.

"I am _not _playing with you, Pryde. I want to get off this damn thing as much as you do, and we can't do that unless we all do it together. Mostly because Drake will not let me back on freaking land if I let you fall to your death." He raised both brows. "See? Doesn't that sound more like me? Okay, then trust me. I won't let you fall."

To his surprise, Kitty actually relaxed, just a tiny bit. After a moment's hesitation, she stepped forward very, very carefully. When she was close enough, she reached forward and took his offered hand. Their fingers slipped together and Kitty's trembling hand gripped his with surprising strength.

Pietro breathed out a slow sigh of relief, calm settling over him as he let Kitty walk one step, then another, until she was right in front of him, their hands clasped between them. Her lip was red from where she'd been biting it, he noticed.

Turning back in Bobby's direction, Pietro left their hands linked behind him and led Kitty step by step behind Bobby. They moved further down the ice, and he felt her begin to relax more behind him, more at ease with the pace.

Thank god, Pietro thought. Pretty soon, they'd be back on land and he could bleach his mid of this altruistic memory – _Whoosh. _

The sound of the first fighter plane rushing by caught Bobby off guard.

_Whoosh Whoosh Whoosh_. The second, third and fourth blasted by what felt like only a few feet overhead and threw off his concentration entirely. He wavered, the stairs melted, and in a split-second instant of panic, Pietro cursed Poland with every single ancient gypsy curse he could think of.

The stairs disappeared beneath them, and only Pietro's wicked fast mind managed to catch the image of Angel snatching Bobby's hand and throwing him away from the river and onto the bank. Kitty and Pietro were not so lucky, and the last thing he remembered before plunging into the freezing water of the Vistula River was Kitty's scream right next to him.

The water felt like a thousand stabbing knives.

Pietro felt a gulp of water jump into his mouth and he tried to fight it, his mind screaming at him for air, not water, because what in the hell am I supposed to do with that shit, his lungs wondered. The world around him went from bright to dark blue, and he pushed against the current of the river as it sucked him under against his will. His arms waved frantically, fighting for purchase against anything it could find, and it was only then that he realized he'd let go of Kitty's hand.

Pietro clawed his way to the surface of the water just long enough to see the falls rush by as he was pushed behind them and into the cave under the cliff. Water engulfed him again and he was dragged under, where the river thoughtlessly slammed him into a rock deep underwater before he fell yet again, this time over the lip of a rocky crevice and further into the cave.

The water here was equally as rough and fast, pushing and pulling at him, keeping him under the surface so the light above was only a distant memory, because now everything was black, blue and painful. He hit another rock and lost a mouthful of air to a gasp, but when he turned in the water and managed to grab hold, that was when he saw her.

Kitty's body rushed by his, pushed by the same current, but she was limp and not fighting it at all. Something in Pietro's brain switched at the sight of it, and he pushed off the safety of his rock to grab for her arm. He barely managed to snatch it before the current shoved them both against a rocky wall, and Pietro used it to brace himself and wrap one arm fully around Kitty's small waist.

With one great, powerful push of his legs, he got them off the wall and against a bed of dirt and rock. His feet at last found purchase, and Pietro pushed hard against the current of the river until his head breached the water's top and he gasped loudly, taking down greedy mouthfuls of air as he struggled out of the water and onto a small bit of dry ground with Kitty in tow.

"Shit!" he shivered violently, every inch of his body freezing inside and out. The cave was very dark, but a hint of light peeked in from high above where the falls continued to rush downward, and he shifted her body into the light to see her face. "Pryde! Wake up!"

When she didn't respond, he scowled. "Oh, so, what? You're ignoring me now?" he snapped at her, one hundred percent aware of how crazy he sounded, because not many people could talk with a lungful of water. "You are such a haughty bitch, you know that?"

Hands shaking with the kind of cold that hurt, Pietro turned her on her back against the gritty dirt and looked her over. He gathered his thoughts for only a moment before he placed his hands on her chest and began CPR. Mouth pressed over hers, fingers on her nose to prevent the escape of air, Pietro pumped and breathed as he'd been instructed to do in some class a long time ago. Thankfully, he retained information very well.

Or so he thought. Kitty still wasn't moving, and he almost stopped, because his body felt too cold and bruised to move. Then, with a last burst of effort, he went through one more rotation of the motions.

Kitty's body jerked and he moved away just in time for her to roll on her side, water and bile spilling from her mouth as she coughed violently. With one loud, agonized gasp, Kitty closed her eyes and fought for normal breathing, her entire body curled up tightly against the cold.

Pietro leaned back and then fell over himself, exhausted. For a long moment, neither of them said anything. And then –

"No, Maximoff," Kitty gasped out. "I _don't _want to go swimming."


	6. Chapter 6

Author's Note: And onward! Thank you very much to my reviewers! If you're reading this story for the first time, I would love to hear from you. Even just a few words would make a big difference for me!

* * *

It felt like hours before Angel and Bobby reached them, though that might have been because she and Pietro had nothing to do but sit and shiver in the dark while the other two teens argued over the best way to get the pair back up over the falls and to the surface. In the end, Angel flew down to give Pietro and Kitty a rope made out of clothes she'd found on a drying line several yards away.

"You first," said Pietro wryly to Kitty.

Kitty grasped the shirts-and-things rope. "Aw, thanks, Maximoff. That is uncharacteristically gentlemanly of you," she said, before jumping up to begin her ascent. Pietro put his hands on the pockets of his soaking wet pants.

"If by gentlemanly, you mean I don't want to give you the pleasure of seeing my ass on the way up, sure." He smirked. "Also, I no longer trust the structural integrity of anything made by Bobby Drake."

"That wasn't my fault!" called down Bobby from the top.

"Tell that to my partially collapsed lung, Drake!"

Fifteen minutes later, Kitty found herself rushing through yet more freezing cold water and onto the bank of the river as Bobby helped pull her up onto the dry grass, where she collapsed. "And to think," she said with chattering teeth, "here I thought I'd get to warm up in the sun."

Bobby looked woefully to the sky as it settled into evening and the last of the orange heat rays disappeared beyond the horizon. "Sorry," he frowned, taking Kitty's bare arms and rubbing his hands on them in an attempt to warm her.

"I'll be – be okay," she managed, wincing as she pinched at the soaking wet sweater Bobby had loaned her. It felt like the damn thing weighed a hundred pounds. Unfortunately, all Kitty had on underneath it was her thin camisole, so taking the sweater off was simply not an option.

"You look like a drowned chipmunk," said Pietro, before he broke into an inhumanly fast spin. Now dry, he straightened his hair and paid the rest of them absolutely no attention at all.

"Don't suppose you could do that for Kitty?" asked Bobby, noticing Kitty's envious stare.

Pietro raised a brow and raked a gaze over Kitty's shivering form. "Sure, if I wanted to give her Shaken Baby Syndrome."

Angel shoved past him, her arms full of the clothes she'd used to make the rope. "Here, Kitty. I pulled everything apart. I think most of these clothes will be too big for you," she held up a large button-up shirt. "But at least they're dry. You can wear them while we hang up your other clothes."

"Thanks, Angel," Kitty smiled, gratefully accepting the clothes.

* * *

By the time night fell in earnest, a small fire was roaring and Bobby had set to work on their ice shelter for the night. Pietro sat near for the fire for a while, mostly because even though he was now dry from the river, the wind was still _bitchin'_ cold.

He hated it. Not just because it was too cold to enjoy being outside, but because it made him remember – well, things. It made him remember things, and he'd just rather not.

Bobby returned to the fire and began talking with Angel about something inane, so Pietro rose from the fire and moved away from their campsite, into the darker area of woods that shrouded their little spot. He paused, his lips quirking in a hint of amusement as he heard her mutter and curse.

When he rounded the tree, he spotted Kitty Pryde immediately.

The clothes Angel had stolen off someone's laundry line were, in fact, far too large for the tiny teen. And that didn't appear to be her only issue. He could've left her to deal with it on her own, but why resisting temptation was simply not in Pietro's habit.

"Men's shirts button the opposite way," he told her as he appeared.

Kitty's head jerked up at the sound of his low voice. "O – Oh," she squeaked. Even in the darkness, he could spot the flush in her cheeks. "Well," she cleared her throat a little and worked furiously to button the large shirt all the way up. "That's silly."

Pietro paused in front of her and took in her appearance. Her sweater and jeans hung on a branch nearby to dry, but none of the slacks Angel had found would even remotely fit Kitty, so she'd simply tied yet another long shirt around her hips to cover most of her legs. The shirt she wore on her torso gaped open at her collarbone.

"Why is that?" she asked, and Pietro blinked thoughtfully before he realized she was talking to him.

"Because," he said, lifting his eyes to meet hers. "Traditionally, men were not dressing or undressing themselves." He raised both brows.

"Oh," said Kitty again, her eyes pulling away from his and turning to her toes, where they curled into the dirt without her sodden shoes. After a moment's pause, she began to work on buttoning the cuffs of the shirt, but the stiff material refused to cooperate with her frozen fingers. She fought with them for a few minutes before she stopped and looked back to Pietro.

Without a word, she held out her arm.

Pietro rolled his eyes, expression faintly amused as he stepped forward and took up her wrist in his fingers. With practiced ease, he buttoned the cuffs on her right arm and pulled the sleeves over her cold hand, before reaching for her left arm to do the same. Kitty stepped closer and let him fix her other sleeve for her, but this time, Pietro let his hands linger at the inside of her wrist, where the button fell. Silence floated between them as the tips of his fingers brushed her bare skin.

"Better?" he questioned, only mocking her a little.

Kitty lifted her blue eyes to his, and for the first time since they'd come to this hellhole, he saw a flash of what he'd glimpsed in Bayville. Not the self-righteous, holier than thou crap – that had never left, much to his chagrin – but that other look, the one he figured Lance must have seen from time to time. The expression Kitty had sometimes in battle, when the moment was just right.

It was a challenge.

Before Pietro had further time to process this, a voice cut through the air.

"Kitty!"

Pietro broke away from Kitty, dropping his hands to his sides as Angel appeared. Her dark eyes took in Pietro for a moment with clear displeasure before she shifted a smile to Kitty. "We cooked some fish. You good?"

"Oh," Kitty hurriedly moved away from Pietro. "Yeah, I'm starved. Let's eat." The two girls moved away, but Pietro remained where he was for a few minutes.

When he'd had his fill of thinking, he left the darkness and returned to the fire.

* * *

By the time the group rose the next day, Kitty's clothes were dry. The sweater, jeans and flats (her poor, abused shoes) were her choice of attire again, and she insisted they return the stolen clothes before continuing on, which they did, though not without a heavy amount of complaining on Pietro's part ("This is not the time to be considerate, Pryde." "There's always time to be polite, Maximoff." "As the fastest man alive, I beg to differ.")

The day passed uneventfully and at night, they settled down once more with food and shelter.

Kitty reclined in her spot, feeling full and content for the time being. Her eyelids felt heavy with the need for sleep, but she simply leaned on Angel and looked into the fire. The better part of the day had been spent walking, as had become their custom. And, as had become Kitty's personal custom, she'd used that time to meticulously dissect everything that had happened over the last twenty-four hours.

Pietro Maximoff had saved her in that water.

And well, okay. So she'd saved him and he'd saved her, and she'd saved him before THAT back in New York and he'd just left her on a cliff like the ass he was, but he'd known she was safe, so did that really count?

She glanced across the fire at Pietro, who sat with his arms balanced on upraised knees, eyes on the fire just as hers were.

She was giving this too much time and energy, she quickly decided, even as she admitted to herself that it was hard to look away whenever Pietro looked thoughtful rather than vindictive. He was certainly unusual looking. Not in an obviously mutant kind of way, but still, rather unique. She remembered his multiple dates to the school dance last year and rolled her eyes.

Best not to inflate his ego.

"… man, that's one thing I do not miss," said Angel next to her, and Kitty realized she was supposed to be listening.

"What is?" she asked, looking to Bobby and Angel.

"The bathroom situation at the mansion!" Angel said, laughing. "You'd think there'd be a lot more bathrooms in a house that size."

"Try rooming with Kurt," said Bobby with a grin. "Fur everywhere. I should buy stock in a Lint Roller company. I definitely give them enough money."

Kitty smiled and nodded. "Yeah, swimming with him is the absolute worst. Not his fault, though." She folded her arms around her legs and a thought struck her suddenly. Her expression drooped.

"What is it, Kitty?" asked Bobby, noticing her frown.

Kitty looked at her hands, dimly registering the fire dancing behind them. "I wonder if our parents know we're gone," she murmured. The thought made her chest constrict painfully. "I'd hate for them to worry."

Bobby and Angel fell quiet. "My parents are in Boston," said Bobby after a moment. "I was supposed to visit them this weekend." He sighed. "I hope… I don't know, I hope they don't know. With everything that's going on back home, they might… think the worst." He made a face. "I miss them."

Silent during most of the exchange, Angel pawed at a shoestring next to Kitty until she nudged her friend gently. "What do you miss?" asked Kitty softly. Angel glanced up and tried to smile, but it was a poor effort.

She shrugged. "I dunno," said Angel. "The mansion, I guess? My parents are – like, nonexistent, ya know? So it's not like they'd even know if I was gone." She picked up a small rock and tossed it into the fire, and Kitty looked away, feeling guilt well up in her gut.

"I forgot you were in foster care before you came to the mansion," she said apologetically, touching her friend's arm.

"S'okay," Angel leaned against her a bit. "You know, when I first came to Xavier's, I thought it was just another group home. Like, look at all these misfit kids that no one wants. You'll fit right in!" She laughed, but the noise was bitter. "But it was like… more than that. Like, yeah, lots of these kids were misfits, but they were still doing okay. And those that didn't have parents, like me, we still got taken care of. Xavier, Storm, Jean. They all _cared." _

"For the first time ever," Angel continued, her eyes on the fire, "I had people around me who knew what it was like to have to hide. To believe that no one in the world could understand you. I had that with people. And even the ones with happy families, they understood what it felt like to be totally _alone_." She crushed more pebbles in her hand.

"Alone and scared."

"What happened to your parents?" asked Bobby as he leaned forward, his expression sympathetic but curious. "If you don't mind me asking."

Angel's lips quirked wryly. "I – uh, don't really know about my dad, but my mom was really into drugs. She kept losing custody of me whenever she'd run off to a crackhouse or something. The worst part was, she'd always 'clean up her act' every few years and get custody of me again, and the stupid – the _stupid _judge would believe her, every damn time. And they'd take me away and put me back with her, and she was just – " Angel's features twisted into an uncharacteristic sneer. " – she was _bullshit. _Just a liar and a druggie."

Kitty watched as her friend pushed back some of dark hair in an obvious show of frustration. She didn't even seem to be aware she was still talking, her captive audience silent in reply. "One time, I had these foster parents, right? And they were nice as hell. Older white couple, the Crenshaws. They'd already raised their bio kids, but when they took me in, they treated me like one of their own, right?"

Angel bit her lip, dark eyes still on the fire.

"They were like _real parents f_or me. They took me to dance, they told me they loved me. And for two whole years, I got to live like a – a normal kid with them. And I really thought," her voice cracked and Kitty's heart did the same, "I really thought… they were going to adopt me." A furious throw tossed Angel's pebbles into the fire.

"But then my _bitch _of a birth mom came in and got me back again. She ruined all of it, like she always did. And by the time she left me at a damn bus station a few years later, the Crewnshaws had already adopted another kid."

Kitty reached forward and touched Angel's head with soothing strokes.

"No place was ever like the Crewnshaw's," she said heatedly, no longer paying attention to anyone. "Those people were better parents to me in two years than anyone else was in my entire life."

Continuing with her strokes, Kitty chanced a look up and spotted Pietro's expression across the glowing light of the campfire. It was darker and more pensive than she'd ever seen it, and she found herself wondering why.

The rest of the evening passed quietly. After they covered the fire with ashes, the four teens crawled into their ice shelter and fell asleep.

* * *

_"Wait - No - Just loop it through like I showed you. Be patient, little Pietro."_

_"I don't like being patient. Stuff takes too long!" _

_A chuckle, and the older man took the thread away from the small boy. "Well, you won't like growing up, then. Everything takes longer when you're old." _

_He looped the fishing line through the hook and then handed it back._

_"Not me," Pietro said with a grin. He cast out his pint-sized fishing pole, delighting when it hit the water next to the bait of the larger pole next to him. "I'm going to be so super fast!" _

_"I bet you are," the man said to him. They settled on the bank of the river together. Behind them, a woman stood on the steps of a covered wagon and draped sheets over the top to dry, while a little girl with black hair watched her with admiring eyes._

_"Papa?" _

_"Yes?" _

_"Does the sun go into the ground when it sleeps?" _

_The whir of fishing line sounded and then another plop as the bait resettled in the water. "Not quite," the older man answered with another chuckle. "It just moves away from us, where we can't see it." He pointed across the lake, to where the sun continued its descent behind the horizon of a lake that flickered with streams of orange. _

_"See? It's leaving us, but it will be back." _

_"What does it do when it leaves?" _

_"It goes to other parts of the world, so it can give them light, too." _

_The little boy bit down on his tongue in thought. "Why can't it stay here with us? We could have sunlight all the time! And play all day!" _

_"And what would other little boys in faraway places do, if they never had any light?" The older man tapped the silver-haired boy on the head lightly. "All of us need the light, son. The only difference is what we do with it." He placed an arm around the child's shoulders. _

_The little boy tilted his head, leaning it against the warm torso next to him. He made a thoughtful noise and fell into a rare moment of silence._

_"Django! Pietro! Come on, now, dinner is ready..." _

* * *

Kitty awoke the next morning to a hand clamped over her mouth.

A tiny squeak escaped her and she twisted violently in her sleeping bag to see her assailant, only to have Pietro Maximoff shush her with a glare. He pointed, and Kitty turned her attention in the direction of his stare. Her insides constricted with fear.

Human-shaped shadows moved outside the ice shelter. The dim morning glow of sunlight cast the moving figures in dull grey outlines, and when Kitty's wide eyes turned to Pietro, he motioned again for her to stay quiet. A quick glance to their left told Kitty that Bobby and Angel were still sleeping, blissfully unaware of their visitors.

One of the outsiders poked at the ice shelter curiously, confused mumbles in German sounding from outside. Kitty swallowed thickly. They didn't seem to realize anyone was inside the hut, which was sealed. Instead, they seemed utterly perplexed by its presence in the woods.

Pietro motioned to her again, gesturing between them and pointing to the outside, towards the back of the hut. Kitty nodded in understanding and reached up, touching his shoulder. Together, they phased through the ground and re-appeared outside of the hut, several feet away and hidden behind a tree.

"Shit," Pietro hissed as soon as they were solid once more, his dark glare looking over Kitty's shoulder where she crouched close to the ground. Six German soldiers poked around the hut, talking quietly to one another as they did so. Their perusal was becoming increasingly aggressive, and Kitty knew they would break through the shelter soon. Then – well, all hell would break loose.

"There could be more of them nearby," whispered Kitty anxiously. "We can't afford to draw attention to ourselves with a fight." Pietro made a soft noise of irritation before he shifted into a kneeling position.

"Then we won't," he murmured.

Before Kitty had a chance to respond, Pietro disappeared in a flash of speed. In one of the most frightening displays of his powers she had ever seen, he vanished entirely, and only the physical reactions of the soldiers told her what was happening.

One soldier dropped immediately with a thick, bloody gurgle. Another fell over, body twisted. The third went flying into a tree, which he hit with enough velocity to crack his spine in half. For a split-second, Kitty could almost see Pietro, but then he was gone again and the men barely had a chance to panic before Pietro had reached the last one.

This time, he slowed just enough for Kitty to see him snatch the man's arm, leap over him and crack the arm violently on the other side, snapping it away from the soldier's body with a great, powerful yank that sent a stomach-turning _rrripppp _through the air, so nauseatingly clear that Kitty turned her face away and covered her ears.

He fell to the ground, shock absorbing the last moments of his life before he, like the others, fell over in a broken slump.

Kitty slowly lifted her head, her body trembling as she took in the four-second massacre.

She expected Pietro to crack a joke or say something vile, but he simply stood a few feet ahead, his back to her. Kitty approached cautiously, her gaze deliberately high and forward to avoid looking at the mangled bodies. The air felt thick and uncomfortable.

Next to her, Pietro drew in a long, deep breath.

The noise was almost as disturbing to Kitty as the sight in front of her, and she desperately wished to alleviate the tension. Her muddled mind attempted some levity.

"Gee, Maximoff," she said quietly, her voice trembling a bit. "I'm beginning to think you've been taking it easy on us all these years."

Her cautious glance to the side showed her Pietro's blank stare and nothing more. He turned something in his right hand. "You'd be doing me a favor, Pryde," he said at last, "to think that what you've seen is the worst I've done."

With that, he tossed what he was holding into the pile of bodies and turned away. Kitty's eyes sought out the object against her will, and what she saw made her stomach churn further.

It was a dismembered hand, shredded from the joint, with bits of torn skin around its edges.

Kitty's eyes snapped closed and she turned away swiftly, a hand jumping to her mouth. She wanted nothing more than to just leave, but she couldn't leave the bodies there. Eventually, she hyped herself up enough to step forward and, when one finger she would forever scrub, she phased each body into the ground to hide it.

Bobby and Angel awoke an hour later, oblivious. And for whatever reason, neither Kitty nor Pietro mentioned the incident.

They continued on.

* * *

The closer they got to the coast, the more traveled roads they came across. Once, they even saw a long train riding on distant tracks. The only sign they could see in that direction read _Treblinka._

* * *

"Go on, keep trying."

"You can_not_ be serious."

"I mean it. Keep trying, dumbasses. You will not be able to name something I have not _personally _seen Blob try to eat."

"Let me try ... uh, a lightbulb?"

"Okay, that one was my fault. I dipped it in sprinkles."

"_What_?!"

"We didn't have cable, Drake. Entertainment value came and went as it pleased."

Traveling conversation quickly became something of a commodity.


	7. Chapter 7

Author's Note: Wow, I can't believe the responses to these last few chapters! How exciting. Thank you very much to everyone reading and especially to those who take the time to drop me a line! Reading reviews is often my favorite part of the day.

* * *

It began to rain in the afternoon and continued all through the night.

Traveling became even more miserable, and the impending Polish winter meant that they'd be lucky if a swift freeze didn't make its way over their sullen paths. Bobby's handmade shelters helped, but the ground was still wet and dark, uncomfortable underfoot.

Kitty glanced back at Pietro, making every effort at subtlety. As usual, her efforts failed.

The group had been eating regularly enough, but it wasn't enough for anyone to feel one hundred percent, and she knew Maximoff wasn't healing like he should. The time run had cost him dearly, and the attack on that group of soldiers outside the ice hut had only made things worse. Every time he'd used his powers since their arrival, he'd suffered greatly for it.

He lagged behind the group, obviously in pain but stubbornly unwilling to say anything.

"Hey," Kitty called to the others, wincing as she touched her stomach. "Can we stop and take a break? I'm uh," she thought quickly, "starting to cramp up." Behind her, Pietro dropped quickly to a rock and said nothing, only huffing occasionally as he fought to ease his pain.

Bobby eyed Kitty with concern. "Are you okay?"

"Fine, fine," Kitty smiled easily. "It's just – um, probably… that time of the month." Oh, god. She hoped not. She had no idea what she and Angel would do.

Angel seemed to be thinking the same thing, because her face twisted and she leaned against a tree. "Well, there goes my dignity," she said dryly, studying her dirty fingernails. Bobby looked equally alarmed and edged away to sit near the river while they rested. The rain had abated for now, but the slivers of sky visible through the tree line told them they wouldn't have respite for long.

Sitting on a flat rock near Pietro, Kitty rubbed at her shoulders, sore from the pack she'd been carrying. When she looked up at Pietro again, she realized he was watching her. Oh, he looked pissed. He knew she wasn't really cramping. She'd stopped to give him a break.

"The hell are you looking at, Pryde?" he snapped.

Never before in her life had she met someone so hostile to help.

Long past the point of taking personal offense at his tone, Kitty sighed heavily and shifted in her spot. "You know, Maximoff, I think you might be even more of an ass here than you were in Bayville," she told him. Pietro narrowed his eyes.

"Yeah, well, Nazis aren't exactly a mood enhancer for anyone," he pointed out flatly.

She placed her chin her hands, making no secret of her observations as she studied him now. After a long moment of silence, in which Pietro's glare remained completely intact, she spoke softly.

"You'll heal, Maximoff."

If she'd thought this would comfort him, she was wrong.

"Shut up," he hissed. "You don't know whether I'll heal or not, Pryde. Just like I don't. And you know what else?" he scooted forward, his voice dropping low. "I wish you had just left me in those woods to die."

Kitty straightened, her blue eyes wide. "Why would you say that?" she whispered back desperately, not wanting Angel and Bobby to overhear them. "I've never known you were so self-pitying, Maximoff. Get a grip!"

At this, Pietro's sharp features shifted between anger, terror and agony in quick succession. His hands curled against the rock that steadied him, and though he tried to take a deep breath – presumably to calm himself – it caught in his throat, and Kitty watched him visible tense.

"I can't run," he said at last, his words very quiet.

Kitty's brows furrowed, and she moved away from her spot to come closer, though she was careful to make sure Bobby and Angel weren't listening. "I know, Maximoff," she said, a bit confused. "But –"

"I can't – _run_," he repeated through gritted teeth. His eyes opened and narrowed deeply on her, grey color reflecting much darker than usual. "And if you weren't such a blind, self-righteous brat, you'd understand why I'd prefer death."

When Kitty only stared in response, Pietro leaned forward, his posture radiating hostility and anger even as his words came out in feverish, quiet tones.

"Have you ever been behind a person at an ATM who doesn't know how to use the machine, Pryde?" he asked. "Have you ever stood in a long line, knowing the person at the front is making things take way too long, asking too many stupid questions, taking up too much time?"

He breathed in sharply and fought off a wince, his features pinched with anger.

"Have you ever sat in class and waited for the teacher to explain the same ridiculously easy concept to your moronic classmates, even though _you_ completely understand and all you want is for the teacher to move on, because god damnit, you already know this shit? And you know, you _know," _he continued emphatically, "that you could have it done in five minutes, but everyone around you is slowing your pace to a _crawl _because they. can't. keep. up."

"Y - Yeah, I guess so," she admitted in a small whisper.

Pietro met her gaze. "Well, that's my entire world, Pryde," he murmured. "Every day, every hour. My world is filled with people who can't keep up. And the only way I can deal with it is by using my powers."

Kitty lowered her eyes from the intensity of his gaze. "That sounds … difficult," she conceded.

Bobby and Angel began to move around nearby, ready to continue. Pietro forced himself to stand, and without looking at Kitty, he said, "Difficult is what I dealt with before." He picked up his pack with obvious reluctance. "Not even being able to move as fast you? This is _hell_."

* * *

"Whoa, whoa."

The group stopped at the edge of the paved road, toes kept carefully from the edges, as if just stepping foot on it might alert someone to their presence. Not a vehicle could be seen for miles, but it was the first large road they'd come across.

Looking both ways, Kitty sighed in relief when she saw nothing.

Following the river had worked out fairly well for them, but the further north they went, the more travelled areas they came across. The uncomfortable feeling that their luck would soon run out crept up her neck on a nearly hourly basis.

"Look," said Angel, pointing to a stone bridge that crossed their river. "There's a sign on the other side. I bet there's a town or something that way."

Kitty glanced at her map. "I'm not exactly sure where we are. We should avoid it."

"Oh, come on, Kitty," Angel peered around the bend, where heavy forest outlined both sides of the river and shrouded the entrance to the village. "We haven't seen anyone since the cave. Maybe we can just take a peek."

Thunder clapped overhead. Kitty turned her worried gaze up to the murky sky, and she felt Pietro move at her side, his expression much the same as hers. "Let's just cross the bridge here and keep going until dark," said Kitty, but Bobby and Angel were already sneaking around the street's bend and peering further down the clearing. "Oh, come on, guys! We need to go, already!" The sky rumbled in agreement with Kitty's desperate cry.

"I see it!" called Angel, hidden behind some trees. "Come check it out. I think it's empty."

Pietro dragged a hand down his face. "If your friends were rats, they'd have broken necks and no cheese," he told Kitty flatly, but he let her prod him in the direction of the road as they hurried after the others. "Guys, wait up!" she called.

* * *

Empty. The moment Angel spoke, Pietro's irritation dissolved into a mixture of uncertainty and suspicion.

The group rounded the paved road and continued a few feet before the forest pulled away in fronto f them and the road widened, turning between a high iron arch built on brick pillars and continuing through the center of a large village.

Buildings lined the street, no more than two floors in height, simply but well-kept in construction. The road changed to cobblestone beyond the arch, and it was lined with lighter stones on the edges. Some of the buildings were houses, settled comfortably between small businesses, such as a butcher's shop and a shoemaker. In the distance, a steeple was visible, either a church or a school, Pietro wasn't sure. Not a soul moved in the town. Angel had been right.

There was no one there.

Pietro walked behind the others, with Kitty just ahead of him by a few steps, her wide blue eyes taking in the scenery around them. The eerie village looked like a movie set, left abandoned after the work was done, ready for its citizens to rejoin it the next day, as though they'd never been gone at all.

There were newspapers on the ground, items untouched in shop windows, and wreaths on the doors of homes. Head lifted, Pietro looked to each window, grey eyes ticking over them with mounting anxiety. He had a number of suspicions about this village, chief amongst them that it was not nearly as abandoned as it seemed.

A sign hanging over a business doorway creaked lightly in the gathering winds. What little light had been afforded to them during the day was quickly disappearing under gathering clouds, and Pietro felt a shiver grow in the base of his spine as the temperatures dropped.

Ahead of him, Kitty Pryde peered in the window of a home, her brows furrowed. "I wonder where everyone went," she murmured, looking back to Pietro. Angel appeared next to her and tried the home's front door. It opened without effort.

"Angel!" scolded Kitty. "Don't go in there – that's someone's house!"

"I'm only taking a look," said the other girl, pushing inside. Kitty huffed and trudged in behind her, and Pietro moved to the doorway with Bobby Drake, peering inside as the girls stepped cautiously into a living room.

The furniture was intact, and many personal affects remained, lying in their spots as if they'd only just been dropped there upon someone's return home. The living room was cluttered with trinkets and little things, and a cabinet stood tall on the corner with a pile of books at its base.

Angel ducked into a room in the back and emerged with a happy noise. "Look, Kitty! Clothes!" She held up a coat and clutched it to her chest. "Warmth!"

"That's not yours," said Kitty firmly, moving to take the coat away from her, but Angel danced away.

"Kitty, we need these! We'll freeze to death if we don't get something else to wear!" She frowned. "I know stealing is wrong, but these people left and didn't take their stuff with them. Maybe they didn't need it." She shrugged. "Besides, it's just a few things."

Kitty sighed heavily, but Pietro could see the conflict clear in her eyes. Practically won out. "Maybe we can… just wear it for a little while," she conceded, frowning deeply. She pulled on a long grey lady's coat with round black buttons. When Angel handed her a scarf, she wound it around her neck, and Pietro watched, silent.

"Find something?" asked Bobby as he approached, and Angel fished around in the closet before finding a stark trench coat to give him. A few minutes of digging found another men's coat, which she handed to Pietro without sparing him a glance. He pulled it on with much less guilt than the others. After taking a look around the room, he found a newsboy style hat hanging on a rack, and he pulled that on over his head. It was warmer that way, and sometimes his silver hair caught too much attention.

He looked up to find Kitty Pryde watching him for what seemed like the millionth time. But this time, her gaze was different. It wasn't that pitying, puppy-eyed look she'd thrown at him too many times over the past several days. It was a thoughtful, borderline appreciative glance.

He pondered on that while the others gathered up a few more clothing items and stuffed them in their bags, something to change into when they had the chance. Pietro was too tall and skinny for most of the clothes, but he found a dark sweater which suited him just fine, so he held on to it.

The group left the house just as a particularly violent clap of thunder sounded overhead. "We should get going," said Bobby, moving to take the lead. They turned to head out of the village, but Angel became distracted once more.

Turning away from the others, she moved down the main road, in the direction of a large ornate fountain, long dry of water. "Angel!" Kitty called out again, tapping her foot. But Angel ignored her.

"I just want to see what's over here," she called out, but her curiosity was quickly cut short.

Angel's loud scream stopped the others in their tracks, but it was Bobby who caught her when she ran back to them with a heaving sob. "Angel!" Kitty exclaimed, hurrying to her. "What – What is it?" she asked, before turning to the fountain. Without waiting for an answer, she hurried forward to see what Angel had seen.

Pietro's stomach dropped. "Pryde, don't – "

But it was too late. He appeared behind her just as the ghastly sight loomed into view.

A pile of corpses sat in the center of town, piled as high as any of the buildings. Not soldiers, but old men and young women, pets, _children. _The cold must have hidden the smell, but it had done them no favors by preserving the faces of the victims in perfect, frost-edged clarity.

Wide, glassy eyes stared out from a few blank expressions. A toddler slumped prominently in the front, too intact, too visible, too everything that death did not deserve to be.

Some bodies were cut. Some were crushed. Most were shot.

The strangled noise from Kitty snapped Pietro out of his reverie, and he only barely registered her movement before she'd turned away from the bodies with a cry and run straight into him.

He held out both hands, unsure what to do with them as she tucked into his front, tears pouring down her cheeks and dripping onto his coat. After a moment, he slowly lowered his hands to the sleeves of her coat and gripped her upper arms, holding her in front of him as he looked over her head.

Pietro was no stranger to violence. And yet, he realized as he looked over at Bobby, who was desperately trying to comfort Angel while looking agonized himself, seeing the reactions of others was almost enough to make him feel as though he was living it for the first time.

It also made him realize that perhaps the only thing worse than seeing such hateful acts of violence was becoming desensitized to it as he had.

Kitty turned in his grip, her horrified gaze turning to seek out the macabre sight once more, perhaps in a futile effort to prove to herself that it had never really existed at all.

His fingers curled at her arms and turned her back to him swiftly, away from the ghastly image.

"Don't look, Pryde," he murmured, ducking his head low as he spoke, face close to hers. Kitty's tearful eyes looked up to his. "You've seen enough."

At her nod, he shifted to pull her in front of him, deliberately blocking her view. "Let's get going," he said, looking to Bobby and gesturing away. Bobby nodded and the other two teens joined them in silence.

Without letting go of Kitty, Pietro urged them forward.

* * *

They'd nearly left the village when the downpour started.

At the front, Bobby pulled away from the street and ducked under the awning in front of a house. "We should stay here tonight. Stay out of the rain for a little while, at least."

Angel cast a teary look over her shoulder. "I'm not staying here, not with all those b – bodies down the street, like that." Kitty touched her friend's arm, but not a single comforting word came to mind. If possible, that made her feel even worse.

"They're just bodies," said Pietro, his voice quiet and lacking its usual sharpness. He glanced down the street, and Kitty felt herself follow his gaze, even though the fountain and its morbid company were long out of sight. Kitty lowered her eyes, her chest tight.

"Look," Bobby said, opening yet another unlocked door to the modest home next to them. They entered slowly behind him, and he peered through the house before he found another door and opened it to reveal a bathroom, featuring a large claw-foot tub. "Sure you don't want to stay here tonight, Angel?" he gestured invitingly.

Kitty's friend stood on her tiptoes and looked longingly at the table. At last, Angel gave in with a groan. "Okay, fine. But only because I am in _such _need for a bath."

The group of teens entered the home and shut the door behind them, effectively muffling the heavy rain as it poured outside. The plumbing had been turned off inside the home, but there was a well out back, and Pietro and Bobby lugged in water to pour in the tub.

Meanwhile, Kitty set about finding everyone blankets and a spot to sleep, and Angel took one look at the fireplace before fashioning enough wood together to start a fire, which she lit with a _pop_! of her fireballs. It warmed the small home instantly, and Kitty stood next to it with her arms wrapped around her, icy fingers gripping hard.

"Hey Kitty," Angel appeared at her side, startling her out of her thoughtfulness. "I heated up the water. You ready?"

"Wait," Bobby appeared at the entrance to the bathroom as Kitty and Angel picked up their towels. "You're taking a bath together?" He exchanged a look with Pietro, and if it had been any other day in her life, Kitty would've laughed. Never before had she seen them exchange such mutual looks of understanding.

"Yep, too much trouble to give everyone separate baths," pointed out Angel with a smirk. She tossed her towel over her shoulder and sauntered inside, and even Kitty couldn't resist a little giggle as they went inside and slammed the door in the boys' astonished faces.

Moments later, they both sank into opposite ends of the large tub, and Kitty wondered if anything felt as wonderful as a hot bath after weeks of traveling on foot. Angel already looked half-asleep, her head tipped back on the edge of the tub.

"Did you see their faces?" Angel questioned after a moment, her eyes closed. She smirked at the ceiling.

Kitty chuckled softly. "Yeah, I can only imagine what was going through their heads," she admitted. Angel began to laugh in earnest, and Kitty joined her, until both of them were laughing so hard they could scarcely breathe, each not realizing they'd started crying until they looked across the water at each other.

"Today was _horrible_," murmured Kitty, in an exhaustive fit between laughter and tears. Angel nodded and swiped at her face, pushing back damp hair as she did so.

"Yeah," she whispered tearfully. "It was."

* * *

Author's Note: Pietro's dialogue at the beginning of the chapter referenced from X-Factor #87, also known as Quicksilver's trip to the therapist.


	8. Chapter 8

Author's Note: Hello to all my new readers! I appreciate you being here. Please, if you have anything to say about the story, feel free to drop me a line in a review! Even a few words would be appreciated!

Onward.

* * *

"_Pietro! Pietro, wake up, son! Hurry!"_

_Blinking against the heavy darkness, the young boy sat up in his bed, confused. "What is it, Papa?" _

"_You must go, Pietro! Get your sister – " Something crashed outside their wagon, and for the first time, young Pietro noticed the flicker of flames beyond the curtained doors. His papa ducked against the noise, but he recovered quickly, yanking Pietro from his bed. _

"_Where's Mama?" asked the young boy, his eyes wide with fright, but his papa simply grabbed his sister and pushed them both out of the back door. _

"_Take Wanda and go, Pietro! Run as fast as you can!" _

"_THIEF!" shouted an angry voice from the front of the wagon. "GYPSY!" _

"_Papa!" Pietro grabbed his father's arm, even as his sister cried next to him, just as confused and frightened. "Don't make us go!" _

"_You must, Pietro!" His father shoved them both away, tears pouring down his cheeks. Blood smeared his skin, but it was so dark out, the stains on his shirt looked more like shadows. Pietro cried out, but his father gave them one last strong shove. _

_Strange people rounded the wagon with torches in hand, and some lifted guns in their direction while others shouted, one slur to the other, with no other logic or reason to their rantings. _

"_THEIF! GYPSY! VAGRANT!" _

_Gunfire sounded, but it missed them, hitting their horse instead and spraying the grass with more blood. "Now!" shouted Django Maximoff one last time to Pietro, before he yanked the boy to him in a tight hug. _

"_Run as fast as you can," he told him tearfully, before he turned to face the crowd. _

_Sobbing, Pietro turned to Wanda and pulled her close to him. They began to run, but the mob seemed close, too close. How could they ever hope to escape? Gunfire rang out again, but this time, it was his father who shouted in pain, out of sight but heavy in Pietro's mind. _

_He ran harder. _

"_Pietro!" shrieked his sister next to him. "You're running too fast! I can't keep up!" _

_Looking back behind them, Pietro saw the angry crowd closing in, and further beyond that, he saw them encircle his father, who disappeared amongst the bodies. An outraged cry escaped Pietro, and he pulled back an arm to grab Wanda. Once she was firmly in his grip, he turned to look forward again and pushed himself to run faster. _

_And he did. _

_Faster and faster and faster still, until the world was a blur of greys, blacks and whites around him. _

"_Pietro!" screamed Wanda again. "What's happening?" _

_Her brother's only answer was to keep running. Because that's what his father had told him to do. _

_Run, Pietro. Run as fast as you can. _

* * *

For a person who could walk through walls, though Pietro, Kitty Pryde was not very stealthy.

He distinctly heard her leave the bathroom, move to the bedroom, shift around in some dresser or bin, and then re-enter the living room all without even straining to listen, although it was clear she was doing her best to remain quiet. Pietro remained where he was, stretched out in a foldout recliner, eyes closed and his jacket draped over him in place of a blanket.

His eyes remained shut, but when she stopped next to his sleeping spot and stretched her hand over his prone form, he knew exactly where she was.

Pietro cracked open an eye.

"What're you doing, Pryde?" he asked quietly.

She froze, her hand just over the pulse point of his wrist. In the dim light afforded by the living room windows, he could just make out her figure hovering over him, her hair damp and hanging around her shoulders.

"I was just - checking on you," she whispered. "Both of you."

She glanced back at Bobby Drake, who was dead asleep on the couch with a blanket strewn over his lower body. Pietro rolled his eyes a bit. When Kitty straightened next to him, he pulled up a crooked elbow and set his hand behind his head.

"I'm fine," he murmured. "Did Salvadore drown?"

He watched her look back at the bedroom door with a small quirk of her lips. "Asleep. She barely made it on to the bed before she passed out." They kept their voices low to keep from waking the others, though he doubted it would matter. Drake looked comatose.

She turned to face him again, and when she did, he finally took a good look at what she was wearing.

"Nice pajamas," he whispered with a little smirk.

He watched as she looked down at the ill-fitting men's pajamas she'd obviously found inside the home. They were green. And flannel. "Thanks," she said loftily, and then she adopted what he assumed was meant to be a mockery of his snarky tone. "I got them from your _dad's_ bedroom."

Pietro raised a brow at her. "You mean Magneto?" he asked doubtfully.

Kitty immediately scrunched up her face. "Ew, no. Nevermind."

Pietro chuckled a little. "Yeah, that's what I thought," he said. He expected her to leave then, and she even turned back toward her door like she might do just that, but then she hesitated. For a moment, she stood silent.

"I figured you'd take the bed," she said, looking away at the wall.

Pietro drummed his fingers on his stomach. "Why? Because I'm an asshole?"

"Because you're annoying," she clarified.

He nodded. "That's true," he agreed. He paused a moment before continuing, unsure of how honest he cared to be. "I don't always sleep in a bed at home, so no reason for me to sleep in one here," he said finally.

Kitty Pryde's brows furrowed curiously. "Really? Why not?"

He shrugged. "I don't sleep much at all."

Now her attention had turned fully to him again, and to his great surprise, she moved to the arm of his chair and perched herself on it, turning her knees towards him and putting her tiny bare feet next to his hip on the seat cushion. He peered at her, but remained perfectly still, even when she put her chin in her hands and propped herself up on her knees right next to him.

"So does your mind just - go full speed, 24/7?" she asked.

Pietro blinked. Her expression was so open and earnest. He had never seen someone so easy to read. Hell, she wasn't an open book. She was an open picture book.

His simple answer was the result of being genuinely startled, though he kept his facial expression blank.

"Yes."

His silver eyes flickered over her. There it was - that little tilt of the head that meant she was zeroed in on something, more focused than he could ever hope to be on a single subject.

"Is that what makes it difficult for you to sleep?"

Pietro felt his body tighten anxiously. He wasn't nervous, per se, but he had the acutely unfamiliar impression that he was not in control of the conversation. "I suppose," he answered finally, his voice low.

Kitty tapped her chin thoughtfully. "Is that why you learned German?" she asked. "Because you were trying to keep busy?" Pietro curled his fingers behind his hair, brushing into his hair.

"No," he answered honestly.

He could practically see the wheels turning in her head. Curiosity danced behind her expression, but she took her time formulating her questions, as if she knew Pietro might only answer a few.

"Where did you live before Bayville?"

This time, Pietro did not answer immediately. As she had, he took his time mulling over his responses. The most appropriate answer would be to tell her that it was none of her god damn business. Others included lying, making up fantastical stories just to watch her believe them and then laugh about it later. However, when he looked back up to her and saw her sitting there, in such an intimate and familiar pose, he found that he didn't wish to lie to her.

So he didn't.

"Lots of places," he told her softly. When she remained silent, he looked away, up to the ceiling, and continued. "Southern Italy, when I was very young. Bulgaria. France. Germany. Greece." He swept a hand. "Most of Europe, at some point or the other."

He watched with fascination as her face shifted into one of the most illuminated, vibrant expressions he'd ever seen on her.

"That's amazing. Do speak any of those languages?"

"All of them," he admitted. "Some better than others."

Kitty curled her fingers at her chin. "And English, too?"

Pietro shook his head. "I didn't learn English until I was thirteen."

Kitty nudged him with her foot. "No way. You don't have an accent at all. How can you have only learned English four years ago?"

Pietro rolled his eyes. "What part of _I learn shit quickly_ do you people not understand?" He shifted in his reclined position. "If I have a good textbook in front of me, I can usually learn a language in six, seven minutes tops."

He watched with too keen an interest as her lips parted in surprise.

"Really?" she squeaked, before immediately lowering her voice again. Pietro's acute gaze took in all of her genuine eagerness. She was so strange.

Certainly, his abilities were extraordinary, but he had never been in a situation to explain them so frankly to someone. To see her so interested, when she herself was capable of such unusual things, made him feel oddly proud.

Not that Pietro Maximoff was a stranger to pride. However, there was a powerful difference between the pride of arrogance, which only ran so deep, and a true, earnest appreciation for one's own self.

This observation made him uncomfortable, so he spoke in a distracted fashion.

"What about you, Pryde? Why did you learn German?"

He watched her as she waved a hand half-heartedly. "Oh, I just like learning languages. German is something I learned mostly from Kurt, but I learned a lot from books, too. I've also learned Russian, Spanish, and Japanese. Oh! And American Sign Language." She signed her name in a quick succession of letters and smiled. Pietro couldn't resist a crooked grin.

"You're a nerd," he whispered.

Kitty grimaced at him, but she didn't seem all that offended. "I just like learning things. Language, in particular, has always interested me."

"Why?" he asked, now genuinely curious.

He watched her drop her gaze and lower her hands to her knees. "I don't know," she said softly, smiling at her fingertips. "I suppose because - well. It's just," she leaned forward, her gaze thoughtful. "Every thought we have, every memory we make, it's all shaped by our understanding of language. And it's the only thing that can never be fully explained, because you'll always be limited by the very concept you're trying to define."

Pietro fell silent.

When she looked up and met his gaze, he felt his throat tighten. "You know several languages," she went on, "so you know what I mean when I say there are certain things about language that transcends meaning. Some words, some expressions, just _exist_ in their own poignant, unexplainable way. Words that don't change or translate, because they're more than a definition. They're a feeling." She touched a hand to her chest.

Under his coat, Pietro's fingers curled tightly at his stomach.

He watched her glance up and rake her eyes over his face. Then she stood away from the recliner and straightened her ridiculous pajamas.

"I should get some sleep."

Words failed him for the first time in years. He fluttered the fingers behind his head in a wave and then watched as she turned away from him and crossed the dimly lit living room. Her head tilted like she might glance back at him, but she didn't.

Instead, she disappeared through the closed bedroom door.

* * *

They left the house the next morning, after the boys had a chance to bathe. Unlike Kitty and Angel, they opted to do so alone.

* * *

It was night again.

It had been a rough walk since they'd left the village, but Kitty Pryde's exhausted body fought rest for nearly two hours before she finally gave up. While everyone else slept in the protective dome of ice, she sat in front of the small campfire and listened to the soft sounds of the forest night.

Her eyes remained unfocused as she turned something small and silver in her fingertips.

"Guarding the fire, Pryde?"

Kitty blinked out of her trance and looked up.

Maximoff stepped out of the small opening in the hut and stood next to the fire, his hands in his pockets. Kitty shook her head and looked back at the flames. "I couldn't sleep," she admitted. Maximoff nodded slowly. She felt his eyes move over her and land on her busied hands.

"What is that?" he asked.

Kitty looked down at the silver square in her fingertips. Maximoff moved to the other side of the fire, directly across from her, and took a seat on a log.

"It's a locket," Kitty told him quietly. "I found it in the pocket of my coat."

Her thumb moved over the tiny hinges of the necklace and it popped up, revealing a small, aged photo of a young couple she'd never recognize. Maximoff watched her from his spot, his eyes lifting just a bit to see the photo. He looked back at her face. Kitty clicked the locket closed.

"They must have lived in that village," she whispered, her eyes unfocused again.

Maximoff moved his elbows to his knees and laced his fingers, his gaze following hers to the fire. For nearly half an hour, they sat without speaking. Kitty did not try to think of anything to say, and she did not believe that Maximoff did either. Instead, they simply sat in one another's contemplative silence.

"Does any of this make you understand Magneto?"

Kitty looked up in surprise. Pietro Maximoff was still learned forward, his intense stare illuminated by the sparks dancing up from the fire. She looked away. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Don't act stupid, Pryde." His voice was low and firm. "You know exactly what I mean."

Kitty sighed quietly and touched her face with her free hand. "This is - is not the same, Maximoff."

"Bullshit."

Kitty closed her eyes. "Look, I - I feel this - this horror and this hurt for what happened during these times, but things - things are different now. I mean, not _now_, but from where we come from."

Maximoff shook his head, letting out a soft snort of disbelief.

"Wake up, Pryde," he muttered. "You may think it doesn't get much worse than this," he gestured. "but it does. And it will."

Kitty frowned. "You don't know that."

"Oh, but I do," Maximoff tightened his clasped fingers.

Kitty gave a soft growl of frustration. "What about you, Maximoff? I mean," she heaved a sigh and looked at him over the fire. Her tone softened. "You have - such _amazing_ abilities. You could revolutionize the fields of science, of medicine, of whatever you wanted!" She waved a hand emphatically. "You could conduct decadesof research in a matter of hours without even breaking a sweat!"

She frowned at him. "You could _help _people."

"I do help people," Maximoff said lowly, his fingers curled tightly in front of him. Kitty steeled her gaze to meet his increasingly heated glare.

"Mutants," she said flatly. "You help mutants." Kitty shook her head. "We're not the rulers of this world, Maximoff. We're just a part of it, like everyone else."

"Yeah, well, tell that to them," he snapped, his eyes narrowing. "As soon as they come looking for us in our beds, put us in jail, take people's kids and kill them just for being what they are!"

"Not everyone is like that - Maximoff wait!" Kitty stood quickly and followed Maximoff as he stomped back towards the ice dome. Her eyes clouded with exhausted tears, but she pushed them back.

"I just - I just don't understand," Kitty exclaimed desperately. Maximoff gave her a hard look and shook his head.

"No," he agreed. "You don't."

Kitty moved to him and put a hand on his arm, and the motion made him still. He shifted his grey eyes to her, face set in hard lines. Instead of speaking, he lifted a hand and traced a nimble finger down the length of the chain around her neck, until his fingers closed around the locket, which he opened with a flick to reveal the picture.

"You should keep this," he murmured.

"Why?" she asked, perplexed.

He snapped the locket closed. "Because you may be the only person left to remember them," said Pietro, before he ducked into the hut and disappeared.

* * *

Once, a few days after leaving the village, the four teens watched a group of soldiers from the hidden safety of a tree-covered hill.

"Those don't look like the Nazi soldiers," whispered Angel. Kitty squinted through the thorny underbrush that camouflaged them. Down below, several men paused to smoke cigarettes and readjust their weapons.

"They're not," Kitty murmured from where she crouched. "They're Soviets."

Bobby pushed back a few leaves and peered closer. "Russians?" he asked. "That's good, then. They were on our side during the war, right?"

Kitty and Pietro exchanged mutual glances. "_Technically_, yes..." Kitty whispered slowly, but Pietro cut her off.

"Let's just say Russia is on _Russia's _side, no matter what war you're talking about," he said flatly. "Avoid them."

They hurried from the area and left the Soviet soldiers behind.

* * *

"Hey, look what I found!"

Angel Salvadore's discovery of a spotty deck of playing cards in her military pack led to campfire discussion of card games, which led an argument over which games were best, which then led to Pietro Maximoff finding out to his great shock that none of his traveling companions had experienced one of the greatest rushes in the human soul.

Gambling.

"None of you?" he repeated, eyebrow raised. "None of you idiots know how to play poker?"

Three shakes of the head. Pietro inhaled deeply and pushed up his sweater sleeves. "Okay, everyone sit down and shut up. I'm about to make card sharks out of you all."

Which was how they ended up around the campfire, each holding a deck of cards and eyeing each other shiftily. Except that Angel still had no idea what to do, even half an hour into the game, so she kept pausing and leaning over to Bobby Drake. "I don't know what I have! Bobby, look at my cards."

"Angel, I'm not supposed to see your cards!"

"I need help!"

Kitty giggled behind her deck and pressed them to her face for a moment to hide her laughter. Across from her, Pietro reclined on one elbow and smirked.

"Okay, okay," Bobby said, laughing. He peered at Angel's deck and then whispered to her.

"Oh!" Angel said in delight, and then her face fell as Bobby's whispers continued. "Oh. Well, damn. I fold!" She put down her deck and snickered.

Pietro rolled his eyes. Bobby leaned forward and put down a card, drawing another from the pile. Pietro did the same and studied his cards carefully with thoughtful eyes. When it came to be Kitty's turn, she made quite the show of looking around at her opponents. Then she carefully drew a card from the deck and bit her lip, trying to contain her huge grin.

Across the fire, she heard scoffing noises, and when she looked up, her grin only grew. "What?" she asked Pietro, who laughed openly, for the first time she could remember. His face, when relaxed, was a stark contrast to his normal expression.

"You have a terrible poker face," Pietro told her, his body shaking with laughter. Bobby Drake laughed too and nodded.

"It's true," he told her.

"Leave me alone!" Kitty exclaimed. She sucked in a deep breath and tried to compose her face, but it was no use. When it came time to lay down their cards, the deck she had been so proud of was no match for Bobby's full house.

"What the hell?" Pietro cried, barely audible over Bobby's whoop of joy as he gathered all of his "chips" in his arms.

"Yes! I am the victor!" Bobby gave a triumphant fist pump into the air before he settled down and then glanced at his earnings. "Now, if only I knew what to do with all these rocks..."

Kitty let her head fall back and she laughed, louder than she had in weeks, and she reveled in the laughter that joined her.


	9. Chapter 9

Author's Note: Thanks as always for the reviews, guys! Hope you continue to enjoy! Also, warning – lots of bad language in this chapter from our frustrated mutant teens.

* * *

The further they went upriver, the more populated the areas became.

Finally, Kitty stopped them. "Look, we'll just loop around this city," she said, tracing along the route on the map with her fingertip. "Then we'll reconnect the river right here and continue north."

"How do you even know where we are? I haven't seen a sign in days," Bobby asked, shifting his heavy pack to the ground. Kitty closed the map and placed it back in her pack.

"Don't worry, we're close enough," she told him, sounding much more confident than she felt. The group left the river and started a path into the dense wood again, hoping to avoid notice. Unfortunately, this also cut them off from their main food source – the river itself.

Two days passed.

The provisions they'd gathered and kept in their pack dwindled, and they went to bed hungry each night. The soles of Kitty's shoes felt thinner by the day, and she swore she could count every stone and twig underfoot. They'd all managed to change clothes at the village, but there'd been no shoes to fit Kitty. Now, she secretly wished she'd looked harder. Simple black flats were hardly made for trekking through the woods for weeks at a time.

Wincing as she reclined next to the ice hut one night, Kitty tipped her head back and looked up at the stars through the tree branches. They'd travelled so far, but everything looked the same.

And with the sky overhead, grander and deeper than she'd ever noticed, Kitty secretly wondered if they'd made any progress at all.

The world felt so vast.

* * *

Five days passed away from the river.

The group shuffled forward on a darkly shaded gravel road, eclipsed in the shadows of the forest, when Angel came to a halt up front. "What in the _hell_?" she gasped. Kitty looked up sharply from where her tired eyes strained on the map in her hands.

"Oh, god," she pushed a trembling hand over her face.

The road they had followed for the last two days, rather than continuing through a natural tunnel, now came to an abrupt end in a pile of forest refuse and street debris.

"It must have been blown up to block supply lines or something," Kitty said in disbelief, her heart thudding with despair. There were no other roads splitting from this one. They would have to backtrack over twenty miles to the river to get back to a point of reference.

Kitty's tired eyes filled with tears.

Ahead of her, Angel stomped her foot. "God damnit!" she snapped, throwing down her pack. Bobby Drake sat heavily on the side of the road and inhaled deeply into dirty hands.

"Oh, calm the fuck down," Pietro growled from his spot off to the side. He dropped his pack onto the ground as well and Angel turned swiftly to shoot him an intense glare.

"You calm the fuck down, Maximoff!" she snapped, "God damnit, I am so tired of being in this place! I am so tired of being hungry, so tired of being exhausted, so tired of walking all the damn time!"

"Then kill yourself and save us all the trouble of having to hear your bitching," Maximoff snarled.

Kitty grimaced. "Guys, stop it!"

"Well, then tell your friend to shut her fucking mouth!" Pietro shouted.

Kitty whirled on Pietro, her blue eyes blazing. "You are so rude, Maximoff! You could try being at least a little grateful for once in your life!"

"_Grateful_?" repeated Pietro incredulously. "The hell are you talking about?"

Kitty huffed. "We saved your life and all you do is talk down to us!"

Pietro Maximoff appeared in front of her in a flash, so dangerously close and feral in expression that Kitty jumped back in alarm. She had not seen his glare so hard and hateful since all this craziness had started.

Pietro snarled, "You saved my life for the exact same reason I saved yours, Pryde. Because we need each other to get the FUCK out of this place. So you can shut your god damn holier than thou bitch mouth and save it for someone who actually believes it!"

Kitty stared at him, her lips parted and hands shaking at her sides.

"Why are you even trying to talk to him, Kitty?" Angel sneered from just a few feet away. "Everything he says is garbage. He can't form a single coherent thought by himself."

Kitty's shaken mind registered a slow-building sense of terror when she saw Pietro's eyes close for just a moment and then re-open as narrowed slits in Angel's direction.

"Excuse me?" he murmured, his voice barely more than a low whisper.

Angel folded her arms over her chest and raised both eyebrows, looking haggard and on her wit's end. The air between them crackled with unbridled animosity.

"Oh, do I need to repeat myself, Maximoff? I said you can't fucking think for yourself. I said you're worthless as a person and if it wasn't for you, we wouldn't be in this fucking mess." She advanced on him with a step, her features sharp. "I said that you're a no-good, lying, cheating, self-serving piece of shit who doesn't know how to do anything except repeat the same hateful bullshit over and over like a brain-damaged parrot, all the while _hiding _behind his _big bad daddy_."

Kitty's eyes slowly moved from Angel back to Pietro, but he was only there for a moment.

Angel didn't even have time to scream before Pietro rammed a hand against her throat and pinned her to the thick trunk of a tree some fifty feet away. A gargled gasp escaped her as she clawed at his hand.

"MAXIMOFF!" Kitty shouted in alarm, prompting Bobby, who had been sitting by in a half-asleep state of exhaustion, to rise as well.

To Kitty's horror, Maximoff reached back with the hand that was closed around Angel's throat and slammed her into the tree again. The desperate noises her friend made echoed in Kitty's head like the slamming of a car door on an empty street.

"STOP, MAXIMOFF!" screamed Kitty, as she and Bobby jumped up and raced for Angel. They were too slow for Pietro, however; even with his depleted strength, he still managed to yank Angel's struggling body up into the tree with him, climbing higher in the branches, out of reach within just a few seconds.

"MAXIMOFF, PLEASE!" Kitty shouted desperately as she and Bobby clambered up the tree after them. Pietro was almost at the top now, though, so much faster even in his weakened state. In seconds, he was on the highest branch with Angel still struggling in his arms.

He pressed her weight over the edge of the branch, but before letting go, he yanked her close.

"_Magneto is not my father_," he hissed, barely audible over her gurgled gasps. In a whisper, he continued fiercely, "My father is dead." Then, without a glance at Kitty and Bobby, he dropped Angel off the branch.

"BOBBY!" Kitty screamed shrilly. Bobby cursed and immediately jumped off his branch straight for the ground. He hit hard on his feet just before Angel's unconscious body slammed into his waiting arms. They both rolled on the ground from the impact, but Angel was spared most of it.

Kitty dropped down beside him and moved over Angel, her hands frantically working over her friend's body.

"She's alive, she's alive," Kitty repeated desperately, before she took a deep breath and began to try and resuscitate her. Bobby crouched next to them, his blue eyes terrified as Kitty pumped on Angel's chest and blew against her blood-stained lips.

"Come on, Angel!" Kitty cried, blowing more air into her lungs. She moved to pump on the girl's chest again, but Angel suddenly lurched and drew in a deep, rattling breath.

Kitty pressed her hands over her face for a moment, her body overwhelmed with relief.

After a few minutes, she and Bobby helped Angel sit up and slowly regain control of her breathing. Angel's dark eyes met Kitty's and filled with tears, but she said nothing; instead, she simply rubbed at her neck with a trembling hand.

A soft thud behind them, and the three teens looked up to see Pietro Maximoff calmly standing from where he'd dropped out of the tree.

Bobby jumped up aggressively and an ice pick formed in his hand. "You sorry _bastard_!"

"Do it, Drake. Do something for once in your pathetic life," Pietro sneered.

"STOP!" Kitty screamed, and the two boys froze their advances. Her fingers clenched on the dirtied, ruined fabric of her jeans and her eyes clenched shut as she teetered from her place on the ground.

A sob escaped her. "Just - Just stop already! God _DAMNIT_, haven't we been through enough?" she exclaimed, doubling over on bent knees. She fought not to give in to her hysteria. She had to be strong. She had to get through this, there was a _reason _for everything, there had to be!

The rhetorical nature of the question kept it from being answered, but Kitty wished more than anything there had been some kind of response. Because she wanted to know.

Hadn't they been through enough?

* * *

Bobby insisted vehemently for the rest of the night that they split off from Pietro. "He's too dangerous," he told the girls darkly. But as much as Kitty hated to admit it, they needed Pietro. He was the one who'd gotten them there.

And he was the only way home.

"We can't dump him," murmured Angel hoarsely, her eyes on the campfire. "If we do, we'll never get back to our friends and family."

"You sure?" asked Bobby, brows furrowed. "You were the one he attacked, Angel. It's okay to tell us if you don't feel safe."

"I haven't felt safe since we got here," she told him wryly, her voice rough and scratchy. "Turning away Maximoff won't change that." After that, she refused to say anything more, and instead turned over and went to sleep.

* * *

They made the return trip and found a different route around the city. For one evening, they had enough food and water to give them some strength. Once they left the river, the only comfort they'd known in weeks was gone.

* * *

"Should we back at the river already?" Bobby Drake curled his fingers around the strap of his pack.

Kitty consulted her map with a slight frown. "No," she admitted, her eyes rising to the setting sun. "I don't think so, anyway. I've lost my bearings."

She felt the unmistakable movements of Pietro Maximoff behind her, but when he paused to look over her shoulder at the map, she snapped it shut and walked away. She heard him huff behind her.

_Stay away from me,_ Kitty thought. Just three days ago, he had nearly choked Angel to death and then tossed her away like trash. Even though Angel had (somewhat reluctantly) vouched for him, saying that she had started the argument, Kitty still had trouble letting herself fall back into the tentative state of familiarity that had formed between them.

"We'll just have to keep following the river until we come across an area that I can pinpoint on the map," she said with a sigh. She scratched at her ponytail. God, she had never felt so disgusting in her life. They had bathed to the best of their abilities in a spring just yesterday, but by now it was so cold that doing so again would be tempting fate. They could easily freeze to death just trying to get clean.

Kitty tugged on her coat, which was now home to a generous portion of dirt and grime, before continuing on.

Normally, they stopped walking as the sun began to drop behind the horizon, but this time they pressed on. By the time the sky had given way to darkness, Angel had spotted the telltale signs of civilization.

Lights. Chimney smoke. Wheel tracks.

"Wow, that place looks big. I wonder what it is," Angel said, peering down the slope of hills that tumbled away from the forest's edge. The river continued on, oblivious to the change in landscape, and went directly through the center of the town.

"The only way we can find out is to go there and look," Kitty said. "But we should wait until morning."

"Just let me go," Pietro spoke up from behind her. "I can get down there and figure out where we are faster than anyone."

Kitty snapped the map closed and turned away from him. "Not in your state, you can't. You'll collapse," she said matter of factly. She looked up and met his gaze solely because she knew how disgruntled his expression would be, and that gave her an insane amount of satisfaction.

Of course, Pietro scowled. "I'm _fine, _Pryde. How many god damn times do I have to say it?"

"Say it as many times as you like, Maximoff." The normally perky brunette gave him her most pretentious stare. "It doesn't make it true." She stepped around him and walked away, her eyes flickering towards the distant city lights once more before she settled on her sleeping spot, far away from Pietro.

* * *

Pietro Maximoff felt like hell.

His body hated him, that much was certain, but what could he do? Rest was something he'd never gotten much of back at home, but in Bayville, he'd never been so injured from a run that he'd needed it all that much.

And food. God, what he wouldn't give for a damn burger right now. Or ten. Hell, even Toad's cooking would be acceptable at this point. Pietro briefly wondered if he was losing his mind.

He glanced at Kitty Pryde, who was trying to tame her hair back into a ponytail, her arms stretched overhead. He could see, on the occasions when she took off her coat, where the straps of her pack colored bruises into her pale shoulders. She was marked and cut up all over. They all were, to be honest, but it seemed so much more apparent on Kitty.

Maybe because she was so small and fragile looking, Pietro thought. Misleading, considering her monumentally bitchy attitude.

The group moved away from the forest and followed the river through the open fields that surrounded the city. Trucks filtered in and out of the main roads, but it was hard to tell which ones were military.

The four teens tucked into the sides of the hills and advanced toward the area.

The city stretched out for miles, but it wasn't until Pietro and the others carefully rounded a hill that they realized, in perfect unison, how the landscape was more rubble than building. Once, a great bridge had crossed the Vistula River through town, but holes blasted halfway along its length had left it impassable. Enough stones and bent metal littered the river to build an entirely new town, and as the four teens approached, it became obvious that only a small section of the city was alive with activity.

The rest of it was a graveyard of all things broken – bodies left half-buried under rubble, automobiles crushed or overturned and buildings crumbled and fallen.

A temporary wall wrapped around the populated area, though it was poorly kept in a few spots. Ahead of Pietro, Kitty Pryde led them to one of the small openings and they entered the city to the south to avoid the checkpoints.

Pietro tugged down on his hat to cover his face and slid his hands into his pockets. Their coats and hats helped them to blend in, but it might not be enough if they get stopped.

Moving up an alleyway from the back, they walked slowly between two buildings and stopped near a sidewalk, where citizens and soldiers alike moved up and down the walkways in heavy groups. Pietro's eyes fell on Nazi soldiers at the front of a city square, toting guns and walking back and forth in carefully practiced forms. He moved his gaze over the paved road. The remaining buildings here were tall and austere, gray brick piled high over busy streets.

Far down the street, buildings stood clustered together, possibly a university, he speculated. His fingers curled tensely in his pocket. Kitty Pryde appeared beside him, her head low to avoid showing her face. She peered around Pietro and turned her head discretely to read a sign.

"Dąbrowski Square," she read aloud. "Why does that sound familiar?"

Angel and Bobby stood behind them, still hidden in the shadows of the alley, but Pietro took another step out and fully immersed himself in the busy foot traffic of the sidewalk. His eyes moved up and over the heads of others before he finally found what he was looking for. "Maximoff?" Kitty asked at his side. She gave a startled gasp when Pietro suddenly gripped her elbow and pulled her away from the street, yanking her into the shadows of the alleyway before he leaned his head close.

"God damnit, Pryde," he whispered frantically. "We're in _Warsaw." _

Kitty's response was swift and appropriately terrified. "Oh my god," she looked to Bobby and Angel as they hovered nearby.

"What?" Angel asked, confused. "What's so bad about War - "

"_REBELLIEREN_!"

An explosion rocked the ground beneath their feet and shook the buildings around them with a painful jolt that left their kneecaps shaking. "Shit!" shrieked Angel. _"What's happening_?"

Pietro cursed and pushed Kitty back towards the ally before running to the street, desperate to see what was happening. Smoke billowed out from the two tallest buildings down the street, and in seconds the square was alight with gunfire and screams. Polish resistance sprang from the sewer grates in the streets and threw bombs, rocking the street with shrapnel as chunks of concrete flew into the air.

Somewhere down the road, the front of a building shattered with the force of another explosion. People shouted and shoved, trying to get away from towering walls of crumbling brick and stone. Soldiers met in the streets in frantic brawls, fighting hand to hand when the guns ran dry, all trying to shout and be heard over the din of warfare.

"What the hell is going on?" Angel shouted. "KITTY!"

"JUST RUN!" screamed Kitty over another great boom nearby, snatching Angel's sleeve and pulling her out into the street as Pietro urged them on. The four teens hurried into the streets and scrambled to a stop when a barrage of gunfire cut them off. Two groups of soldiers collided right in front of them, and the sound of cracking bone almost sounded louder than the weapons themselves.

"This way!" Kitty dragged Angel across the street, trying desperately not to think about the bodies her feet moved over. Something caught her foot and she fell over, but Bobby was right behind her, snatching her by the torso and pulling her up to her feet.

"Go through here!" Kitty pointed, leading them through a hollow brick building as another explosion sounded just behind them. The building groaned in response, and above them on the second floor, a woman screamed before the above ground floor collapsed and a pile of bricks and bodies rained down on them. Kitty skidded to a stop with a scream, tossing her arms over her head.

Pietro grabbed her arm and yanked her away from the falling rubble. "Through this door, go!" He shoved her through the doorway, and the pair looked up in time to see Angel and Bobby leap through an empty window directly into the street. Kitty moved to follow, but a German soldier sprang out of seemingly nowhere.

"_HALT_ – "

His command was quickly cut short by an explosion to his left, and it blasted his body out of the way and into a dozen different places, with his gun falling uselessly to the ground. Kitty let out a startled cry – that guy had been right in front of her, and now his blood speckled her clothes and face – but Pietro pushed her again and she managed to clamber out of the open window and on to the sidewalk. Pietro jumped out behind her and they raced in the direction of the temporary wall.

Pietro stopped in the street and looked down one way and then another. For a moment, the chaotic soundtrack of the battle shifted into a dull, faraway buzz. His vision slowed as he watched the civilians scrambling to escape the hellfire, the soldiers radioing in as they crouched behind crudely constructed barriers, and the great, gaping holes in the street where grenades had landed.

Even the sewer lids rattled on the pavement under the stress of the explosions.

"PIETRO!"

He snapped out of his daze and his eyes fell on Kitty Pryde as she stood several feet away. "Come on!" she shouted to him. She beckoned to him, her hand extended.

He ran to her without a second thought and gripped her hand.

They turned and rounded the corner together, but no sooner had they come to the next street than a grenade landed at their feet. Pietro's silver eyes widened. In the split-second it took for his senses to react, he snatched Kitty around her torso, ran her off the sidewalk and bracketed her against a brick wall.

Both of his arms jumped around her and he tucked his head into her shoulder just as the explosion sounded behind him, shoving them both roughly against the brick. Kitty let out a startled cry beneath him, but he barely registered it.

For a moment, he felt a flood of relief.

Then he realized the girl curled between him and the wall was covered in blood. Kitty's teary eyes lifted to his and she pulled her hands away from his chest, every digit stained with crimson.

That was when the pain hit him. A thousand, a million times it hit him. He sank to his knees in front of Kitty and realized that every breath he drew felt like being stabbed by a hundred blades. When he touched his torso and drew away blood soaked hands, he knew he'd been hit by the shrapnel.

"No!" Kitty exclaimed, dropping in front of him and working her hands frantically over his front. She tore off his coat to see, but Pietro could no longer concentrate on what was going on around him.

Any part of his body that wasn't in blinding pain was inconsequential at that moment, and it was all he could do to keep upright. He sputtered, unable to speak.

Chaos continued around them.

"Kitty!" called Bobby Drake, but the noises were beginning to fade away. Pietro felt his senses dull and the pain was give way to increasing numbness.

The last thing he remembered seeing was Kitty Pryde's face, taut with worry and streaked with tears, hovering in front of his.

* * *

The next half hour was a blur Kitty never wanted to relive in sharper clarity.

Bobby and Kitty carried Pietro away from the destroyed city of Warsaw and out to the rolling hills once more. The sun hovered high in the sky, but the wind was blistering cold, and everything around them seemed so ill-fitting for Kitty's desperate and nearly hysterical anxiety.

They found refuge in the cellar of an abandoned windmill, as far away from the city as they could drag Pietro's unconscious body.

"Someone find me some light," Kitty ordered, crouching down next to Pietro's body. _This is too much, this is too much, _she told herself, her insides bubbling with fear. Outwardly, she took a deep breath and forced herself to stay calm. She ripped off her blood soaked coat and disposed of Pietro's as well.

"Angel, get me some water," she said. "And Bobby, search the packs and see if you can find any kind of sewing kit. Get all the bandages and antiseptic we have, too." The others nodded and dispersed quickly.

Kitty reached down to the hem of Pietro's shirt and pushed it up, only to look away at the sight of his torso. His body was riddled with shrapnel, cutting his skin up in wounds of varying size and degree. Every wound bled freely and coated Kitty's hands all the way up to her elbows. The dim light afforded by their lantern probably disguised the worst of it, but Kitty knew it was bad.

She pushed her hands around the wounds to feel where the shrapnel sat in the skin.

"Trying.. to feel me up, Pryde?"

Her eyes snapped up at Pietro's words. Something in her chest burst with happiness at seeing his eyes open, though he closed them for a moment to grimace in pain.

"Maximoff! Oh, just - just shut up and lay back. I need you to stop talking while I figure this out," she said, leaning over him and pulling his shirt the rest of the way off. She breathed in shakily and forced herself not to cry.

"That bad?" Maximoff asked weakly, his head pushed back and his eyes on the darkness that was the ceiling.

Kitty swallowed and shook her head, wrapping a piece of thick cloth around her knuckles. "Oh, no. I've seen you look way worse," she joked shakily, cringing when Pietro jumped at her touch.

"Relax, Pryde..." he mumbled, turning his head to look at her.

Kitty glanced at his face before she shook her head. "I said stop talking," she told him firmly, finding some of her voice again. "I need you to turn on your side, okay? I think your back got the worst of it."

With a great grunt of effort, Pietro managed to roll on to his side. Kitty winced and ran a hand down her face. Yes, his back had definitely gotten the worst of it. He'd gotten them out of the kill zone for the grenade, but its devastating effects had taken their toll on him.

Kitty, on the other hand, hadn't received a scratch. It had all happened so fast. She'd had no hope of phasing through that one. But Pietro… Her gaze moved up to him again, his own eyes now turned away. "I'm going to have to pull out the shrapnel, Maximoff," she told him. "If I use my powers, it won't hurt you and hopefully I can get them all out before they do any permanent damage."

At that moment, Angel returned with the water and Bobby dropped to her side. "Here's the bandages," he said, "but we don't have a sewing kit. Why did you need it?"

Kitty sighed and wiped at her face again, streaking it with sweat and dirt. "Some of these wounds are going to need to be closed up. I was hoping to sew them." Pietro shifted a little so that he could see her.

"What're you going to do then?" Angel asked, grimacing at Pietro's shredded skin.

Kitty sucked in another deep breath. "I'll have to cauterize them."

"_What?" _Pietro shrieked from his spot on the floor. "Who the hell taught you medicine, _Gregor Clegane_?" Three blank stares made Pietro rolled his eyes. "Oh my god, read a book."

Kitty scowled. "Stop talking!" She turned to Bobby and Angel. "I need some metal and a fire." They nodded and disappeared again. Kitty moved over to Pietro and used her pack to prop him up on his side. She moved in front of him so she could see his face.

"Okay, I'm about to remove the shrapnel. Just tell me if you feel anything," she said. Then, with a surprisingly steady hand, she moved her fingers over Pietro's torso and phased them inside. She could feel his body tissue around her fingers and it almost made her gag, but she pushed herself to continue.

Pietro didn't protest, so her idea that this would be a painless procedure seemed to prove true. Bit by bit, she removed pieces of bloody shrapnel and dropped them into a pile on the ground.

By the time Bobby Drake handed a red hot piece of piping, she had found most, if not all, of the invasive metal pieces.

"This is going to hurt," she warned him tearfully, taking the hot metal in her hand.

"Yeah, no shit," he responded dully from where he laid on his side, just in front of her bent knees. Kitty tentatively reached out her empty hand and touched his head, her fingers threading through the silver white hair.

"Just think about something else," she advised quietly, moving the metal rod to his worst wound. She had no idea if this would work, but it was the only thing she could think of to keep from him bleeding out or getting an infection.

"Like what?" Pietro asked.

Kitty hesitated, the hot metal hovering over his skin. Her hand reached out and brushed his cheeks in what she hoped was a soothing manner. "I don't know," she whispered. "Something that makes you happy."

Pietro fell silent, and she gave him a moment to form his thoughts before she quickly pressed the hot metal against his wound. He let out a strangled yelp of agony. Kitty's chest tightened and she pushed back tears as Pietro squirmed beneath her against the searing pain.

Suddenly, he reached up a hand and grasped her shoulder. Kitty gasped at his intense grip, but she didn't move away. Even after she lifted the metal away from his singed flesh, Pietro still cried out and writhed for several moments. His entire body had curled up like a coil and his head dropped into her lap. Her free hand stayed in his hair.

"Just a few more," Kitty murmured, biting her lip and struggling to stay coherent.

Pietro didn't protest, so she continued cauterizing his worst wounds, one after another. At one point, he had pulled her down by the grip on her shoulder and buried his face in her neck as he had done right before the explosion. He couldn't even manage words. Instead, he simply gasped against her skin.

Finally, Kitty dropped the metal rod onto the dirt floor and ghosted her fingertips over the burned skin. She sniffed a little, her eyes casting upwards for a moment for divine intervention. Then she blew softly on the skin to cool it, though she knew it was little help for the intense pain.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, wincing again at his bone-crushing grip on her shoulder.

Finally, finally, Pietro began to calm. His fingers slowly uncurled from where they'd imprinted themselves on her skin and he dropped the hand to the floor. Kitty turned her head just enough to feel their cheeks brush, her eyes following his face to find his eyes tightly shut and still buried against her. His lips remained parted as he continued to catch his breath.

At last, he pulled back enough to face her, his throat worked over a painful swallow. His body trembled in a way that Kitty had never seen before, but he made no mention of it. Instead, he glanced down at her bruised shoulder, discolored from his tight grip.

His voice was raspy when he spoke. "You should've just phased through my hand," he turned his eyes up to her face, his features pinched with discomfort. "Why didn't you?"

The sudden quiet of the windmill's cellar felt strange, and Kitty let herself feel distracted by it for a moment as she thought. Then she shifted and moved to help Pietro lie down on his side.

"Because you needed someone to hold on to," she told him softly.


	10. Chapter 10

Author's Note: Hey! New and regular readers, very nice! Hope you continue to enjoy. Thanks for the follows and reviews!

* * *

_"I don't understand."_

_"You will," the man promised her in gentle tones. "It will take time, but as with most other grand things in life, it will be worth the wait." _

_He leaned forward in his chair, his slacks rustling. _

_"What if ... I don't want to be a mutant?" Her voice grew small. "What if I just want to keep being me?" _

_The unfamiliar man's piercing blue eyes crinkled as the corner of his lips lifted in a smile. _

_"Then you join the ranks of countless others across the world who feel the very same," he told her. "But it is important to remember that you are truly no different now than you were just a few weeks ago. Your abilities are evolving, but these powers do not come from an unnatural source, dear girl. They come from you." _

_She fell silent and turned her gaze to her bedroom window. _

_"And what about other people?" she asked, frowning. She looked back to the man. "What happens when they find out that I'm ... different?" _

_The wheels on his chair turned to face her directly. _

_"One day, the world will know of us," he told her. "Sadly, I do not expect them to be kind or understanding. So we must be both in their place. Do you understand?" _

_She nodded slowly and hugged her knees. _

_"I'm afraid," she admitted in a childish whisper. _

_"Dearest Katherine," said the man. "There will be moments in your life when you are so afraid, so anguished that you feel as though the world has weighed you down forever. However, you must never stop getting back up. You must never stop climbing, no matter how badly it hurts. Then, one day, you will find that all your troubles are beneath you... and you are standing on top." _

_He rested a hand on her shoulder, and the small girl smiled at him for the first time. _

_"Kitty," she murmured. "You can call me Kitty." _

* * *

She sat up with a strangled gasp.

Blinking against the pitch black darkness, Kitty struggled to remember what had happened and where she was, and it all came rushing back to her in an instant.

Warsaw. The grenade. Pietro. And now the cellar of a windmill, where the four teens hid and rested amongst piles of crates and various farming equipment.

She'd been asleep. The knot in her chest loosened.

Adrenaline fading, Kitty shifted to look around the cellar, but it was too dark to see anything at all. She reached out, feeling along the edges of her sleeping bag and then the floor, trying to determine exactly where she was.

When she felt nothing, she stumbled onto her hands and knees and pitched herself forward in a frantic crawl, desperate to know she wasn't alone.

"Ow!" came a voice to her side. "What in the hell are you doing, Pryde?"

Relief flooded her, so potent it actually made her laugh. "Sorry," she murmured to Pietro as she felt herself wander next to his sleeping bag. "I got kind of disoriented. I can't see a thing down here. Maybe I should find a light."

"Why?" came Pietro's voice in the darkness. "What're you going to do down here, write a novel?"

Huffing, Kitty fell back into a cross-legged position next to Pietro's sleeping bag, shifting in the direction of his voice. "Okay, okay. I won't find a light." She paused. "We are still in the cellar, though, right?"

"Where else would we be?" he groused. She heard him grunt as he shifted in his sleeping bag and imagined his face creasing with pain. It had been hours before he'd finally felt well enough to sleep, though Kitty had done all she could. "And if anyone has the right to be disoriented, it's me," he added in a whine. "I'm the one who lost half a body's worth of blood."

"How're you feeling?" asked Kitty, brows furrowed as she leaned against the wall next to him and hugged her knees.

"Peachy," was his reply, before he sighed again, his breath catching at a sharp pain.

Rolling her eyes, Kitty listened for sounds of the other two teens. "Where are Angel and Bobby?"

"Asleep," she heard Pietro shift into a more comfortable position at last. "Heard them snoring a little while ago."

Kitty paused and silence floated between them for a moment. "I should probably get back to my bag," she said, shifting to turn away, when suddenly her hands brushed something ice cold. "Jesus, Maximoff! Is that your skin? You're freezing!" Reaching forward, she gripped his wrist, which felt positively icy under her fingers.

"You took my shirt," he mumbled. "And considering what I've been through today, I don't think I should be expected to handle the responsibility of finding a new one." Kitty let go of his wrist and moved onto her hands and knees again, newfound determination giving her purpose.

"I'm going to find you a shirt. Or a jacket, or something. It's like, ten degrees in here."

Scooting around the dark floor on all fours, Kitty moved over to her pack, quickly finding Pietro's supplies right next to it with her wandering hands. "Ah-ha! Oh, wait," she pressed the fabric between her fingers. "This is your jacket. Okay, well, it'll work."

Crawling back over to her spot with jacket in hand, Kitty ambled back to Pietro, accidentally climbing over him in the process ("Ow! Jesus Christ, Pryde. Stop trying to trample me, you damn triceratops") before she settled into place. With a flourish of the jacket, she reached for Pietro as tenderly as possible, trying to be mindful of his wounds.

"Lean forward," she told him, and to her surprise, he complied. Her fingers curled around his bare shoulder and ran along his back, finding the center and then leaning close as she looped the jacket around his torso and pulled it over his front. When she felt it securely pulled around him, she scooted closer on her knees and adjusted it around his neck, trying to cover as much of him as possible. Her knuckles brushed against his bare stomach, and for a brief second, she saw in her mind's eye how the tightly coiled muscle there looked when it wasn't covered in blood.

_Way to be creepy, Kitty, _she thought to herself, quickly pushing the thought away.

Shifting off her knees to settle next to him again, Kitty took her time finding the buttons of the coat with her fingers, darkness leaving her with touch alone to guide her. She didn't button it all the way up to avoid trapping his arms, but she managed a few at the bottom to keep in as much body heat as possible.

"There," she murmured at last. "Better?"

Pietro's only answer was a sigh, but she felt his body relax a bit, so he must've been at least a little more comfortable. Kitty pursed her lips and pulled up her hands, fingers brushing the heavy bandaging that circled his torso. "How are you bandages?" she asked quietly, her hands close enough to Pietro to feel him shift in the direction of her voice.

After a long pause, he answered in a somewhat curious tone, "I'm not sure."

Kitty bit her lip before she scooted closer again, her hands reaching inside the coat to feel along the scratchy material of the thick bandages. Her fingers pressed at the edges, looking for loose ends and untapped pieces. Honestly, the whole matter could have been finished quite quickly, but Kitty took her time and for once, Pietro didn't protest her fussing, as he called it.

Her hand moved blindly over his shoulder, brushing the cold skin there as the bandages stopped and her fingers made contact with flesh instead. Every motion was thoughtful and languid, and for several minutes, neither of them spoke. When she finally dropped her hand to his front, she wordlessly checked over the bandages before brushing his stomach again.

There were no bandages there, so she shifted to move back, finished with her inspection. Then, before she could pull away, another hand darted out and caught her wrist.

She breathed in sharply.

The grip was tense for a long moment before it loosened. Digits longer and sturdier than hers fell away from their grip and then moved to the inside of her wrist, tracing up a slow path into her open palm.

Kitty's heart thumped in her chest, her invisible expression bewildered as she felt the larger hand move in hers, its motions curious.

After a moment, the movements became more confident and deliberate. Pietro Maximoff's fingers pressed against the lines of her palm and traced their way up the insides of her digits.

It might've looked strange in the light – Kitty sitting in front of an injured Pietro, cross-legged and leaning towards him, with their hands joined and fingers pressing together in inquisitive strokes. But it was the darkness that offered the anonymity they needed, free to take this moment of comfort, or whatever it was, because Kitty wasn't sure she knew.

However, she felt absolutely certain that speaking would break the spell, so she remained quiet.

Instead, she let her own gentle grip fall over his knuckles. Her thoughts shifted away from confusion and entered more into the acute sensations that came from every minute movement of his hand in hers. The darkness emboldened them both, offering a sense of facelessness that allowed such a bare and simple moment of unfiltered interaction.

Her fingers moved inside his hand now and unfurled against his palm in a feather light motion. Her digits slipped between his and ran a careful course up the insides of his knuckles before moving back down in a slow sweep to his wrist. His hand shifted and caught hers again, folding over it gently.

His thumb moved over knuckles in a soft, sweeping motion before he silently laced their fingers and pressed their joined hands to the ground. Kitty followed the movement and lowered herself to the ground on her side.

She closed her eyes and forced her breathing to steady. Sleep overwhelmed her.

* * *

Pietro cracked open an eye.

Sparse beams of sunlight struggled through the wooden floor that served as their ceiling, and it highlighted the dust floating in the murky air of the cellar. Silver eyes shifted to Kitty Pryde next to him.

She was still asleep, and thank god for that, because she had his arm curled underneath her head like a pillow, their fingers still locked together. The very nearness of her was alarming enough, but she had a grip on his arm as if it were a stuffed animal. Pietro shifted a little, pain lancing his chest, but he only let out a small grunt before relaxing against his sleeping bag again. Sighing, he flexed the fingers of his hand in Kitty's in a futile effort to relieve some of the numbness.

It brought the edges of his fingertips close to Kitty's cheek, and they brushed against her jaw thoughtfully. He let the digits fall into a relaxed curl, and each one fell naturally over the top of Kitty's hand once more.

_What the actual fuck, _he thought to himself, his mental irritation in stark contrast to the sanguine sight in front of him. Despite his mental berating, he didn't move, nor did he make a motion to wake Kitty.

Unfortunately, he quickly found that he did not have to.

Shouts sounded outside, and just as Pietro's sleepy mind registered that there was someone just beyond the cellar door, it opened with a crash.

"What the – " Bobby Drake's head appeared quite suddenly, and he jumped up, yanking Angel to her feet right next to him as a group of soldiers came thundering down the stairs to the cellar. Kitty jerked up as well, blinking confusedly against the noise before she leaped to her feet, alert in an instant. Her hand fell away from Pietro's without a second glance.

"Get down!" hissed Kitty, pulling Bobby and Angel over as the four teens ducked behind some crates. Pietro forced himself to sit up and crouch behind the crates, but it seemed like a lost cause. Surely those soldiers already knew they were down there?

But to the group's great surprise, the soldiers were not Germans. And more people followed them, crying and yelling, with gunshots sounding from outside the cellar as they hurried to safety. The soldiers with them turned and returned fire, shouting loudly as the large group of mostly women and children rushed into the cellar and circled in all around Pietro and the others.

Jumping back away from the crowd, the four teens huddled together, but they could only sit and watch with the rest of the refugees as the uniformed soldiers fought and yelled, firing guns out of the cellar for nearly fifteen minutes of warfare before finally, finally the sounds outside ended.

A woman cowered next to Pietro and Kitty, her eyes shining and her thin arms wrapped around two young children, both of whom trembled violently.

"What's happening?" whispered Angel fearfully, but Kitty quickly shook her head and shh'ed her.

"Don't speak to anyone," she warned in a whisper. "Just go along with whatever they do."

Fortunately for Pietro and the others, the frightened civilians' only actions were to cower and pray, which was suited for their own cause as well. After almost a half hour, two of the soldiers approached the group. Pietro winced and held his side, but he wasn't the only one in the group who was injured, and the four teens hardly stood out in the crowd.

The soldier said something placating to the crowd, his voice firm but his motions calming as he signaled to them. Pietro glanced at Kitty. _Polish, _he mouthed.

A few minutes later, two soldiers left the cellar and took a look around. Then they motioned to their commander, who gave an order to the civilians. The group reacted quickly, hurrying back to the exit and following the soldiers. Before anyone even knew what was happening, the soldiers were beckoning to Kitty and the others as well.

She turned, catching Pietro's eyes for a split-second. _No, don't do it, Pryde, _he thought vehemently, but his mental plea went unanswered.

She grabbed Angel's hand and motioned to the other two. Together, the four teens – including a very reluctant and aggrieved Pietro – followed the group of civilians out of the cellar and into the safety of the soldiers' protection.

* * *

The group walked for what felt like hours before the soldiers leading them finally came to a stop, radioing in to somewhere before they turned and fished around for a hidden door, one firmly planted amongst the greenery of the forest floor. It pulled open to reveal a low earthen staircase, and they ushered people in.

This time, Kitty hung back and waited for Pietro. Growling softly in irritation, he let her help him down the stairs, though he was ready to collapse by the time they reached the bottom. It was nearly impossible to see, but they kept walking, following the herd of people until they finally came to an open area illuminated dimly with bare bulbs hanging from the ceiling.

Kitty looked up, her head falling back against Pietro's arm around her shoulder. "Whoa," she murmured, looking to the others.

As the soldiers dispersed, others appeared, as well as nurses and other uniformed officials. They began giving directions and orders in Polish, but Kitty and the others kept their mouths firmly shut, only nodding vaguely in reply to anything that was told to them. Eventually, they were led away from the entrance to a large room lined with cots, most of which were already occupied by families, all huddled together on the narrow twin mattresses, exhausted but relieved.

Kitty and the others took a spot on the floor near the corner, as far from the Polish civilians and soldiers as possible. She helped Pietro get down to the ground again, and he winced, fighting the effort to call out in pain. Her worried face peered at his, but she couldn't do anything for him at the moment.

"Kitty," whispered Angel in a tiny voice. "What're they going to do if they find out we're Americans?"

Kitty glanced up at the bustling underground facility. A nurse caught her eye, and she quickly looked away. "I don't know," she whispered back. "Just don't talk to anyone, no matter what. Got it?"

A man in white scrubs moved from family to family, offering a small bag of supplies. At each one, the family looked to him gratefully and said, "_Dziękuję Ci_." When the man came to Kitty and the others, she accepted the parcel and murmured the same, hoping her trembling voice would cover up any flubs to the pronunciation. The man simply nodded and went on his way, and Kitty exhaled in relief.

Turning quickly to the others, she took out the loaf of bread given to them and broke it into four pieces, giving it to the others and watching as they devoured their portions. Tentatively, she ate at her piece, but a secret part of her thought about saving it, in case they didn't get any more food.

The other three looked at her, and she could feel them reading her intentions. She ate her portion and then passed around the water given to them as well.

After almost an hour of chaotic activity, the area the seemed to die down to an exhausted murmur, and many of the families, particularly those with children, fell asleep on their beds or on the floor. Kitty ushered the others further into the corner, as far from the other refugees as possible.

On the opposite end of the large room, a trio of nurses moved between the groups of refugees, offering help where they could. Kitty turned a worried eye to Pietro. "Do you want me to try to find you some help?" she asked in a whisper. "I could grab something when they're not looking, medicine or something – "

"Don't bother," he grunted in reply, his body curled into the deepest part of the corner, only his jacket disguising the severity of his injuries.

Kitty hissed quietly. "Don't try to act tough, Maximoff. You're in pain!"

Silver eyes flickered up to hers, and the agony she saw there took her breath away. "I said – _Don't_. _bother_," he bit out, before dropping his head for a moment, and for a terrible moment, Kitty thought he had passed out. But he lifted it again, although his eyes remained low, and spoke.

"Pain medicine doesn't work on me," he whispered between sharp inhales. "My metabolism is too fast. You c – couldn't sedate me if you tried."

Kitty's brows furrowed, a soft noise of distress leaving her before she shifted to the wall, shoulder to shoulder with Pietro. Angel and Bobby exchanged worried looks, before they too shifted in around Pietro to keep him hidden from the soldiers. If someone tried to give him medical attention, they would be caught. And it wouldn't do Pietro any good anyway.

After a few minutes of tense silence, Bobby moved to Pietro's other side and slipped a hand behind him, underneath the jacket to where his shrapnel wounds were the worst. "Try not to get too excited, Maximoff," he muttered lowly, his hand icing over out of view. "This isn't a date."

"What are you talking about, Dr – Ah!" Pietro stifled a cry against his hand as Bobby's iced over hand touched his back against his bandages, and for a split-second, the pain was worse. Then the freezing cold took over, and the speedster slowly relaxed, exhaling for the first time in what felt like ages.

Kitty shot Bobby a grateful smile. "You're the best, Bobby." Her eyes flickered to Pietro, who leaned over to rest on his knees as some of the pain from his wounds numbed temporarily. He grunted something that might've been thanks, but it was muffled by his arms.

"I can also knock him unconscious," remarked Bobby dryly.

* * *

Hours went by without incident. The four teens fell asleep on their hastily grabbed sleeping bags, and even Pietro finally managed to succumb to rest.

Something startled Kitty awake, though she couldn't say what it was. Glancing around warily, she relaxed again slowly. As she rested her cheek against the thin cotton of her sleeping bag, her eyes lifted to the ceiling of the bunker. Around the corner, away from the long line of cots, the lights were brighter and the hum of other machinery gave it a more sinister soundtrack than the soft noises of sleep and the occasional whimper of their quarters.

The group of refugees hadn't gone that far, so Kitty didn't know what was in that direction.

She closed her eyes again, ready to fall asleep once more, even as her nervous mind jumped at every shadow. Just before her mind fell away, the rustling of boots against gritty floors jarred her consciousness. She remained frozen, even when the speed and severity of the footsteps increased, came closer.

They stopped next to the four teens and the distinctive click of raised guns made Kitty shoot up in her sleeping bag.

"_Wstań! Kim jesteś_?" barked the officer in front, three men flanking him.

Kitty jumped to her feet and held up her hands, blue eyes darting to the three sleeping teens behind her. One foot subtly moved in their direction, a desperate hope that she might phase at least one of them if the men opened fire.

"Please, please!" she pleaded in a rushed whisper, praying her friends would stay asleep. They felt so helpless behind her. "We're not going to harm you!"

The officer in front of her balked. "You… You are American," he said in heavily accented English.

Swallowing tightly, Kitty kept her hands up in a submissive pose. She glanced at her friends again, before looking to the officer and meeting his gaze directly. "Yes, and I'll tell you anything you want to know," she said as quietly as possible. "Just don't hurt them, please. I'll do whatever you want."

The officer studied Kitty for a moment before saying something sharp to one of his officers, jerking his head in the direction of the brighter area Kitty had noticed earlier. Two uniformed men moved forward and snatched Kitty's arms in rough grips. They tugged her away from the other teens and the officer followed.

Stumbling between the two large men, Kitty followed without protest, As they turned the corner and passed under the arch, her eyes lifted to a crudely etched sign over the entrance.

_Mazurek Dąbrowskiego_


	11. Chapter 11

Author's Note: Hey, everyone! I hadn't planned on putting up this chapter this month because I'm actually overseas right now, but I had most of it written and I was able to finish it up today on a break of mine. So here you go!

Enjoy…

* * *

Kitty left the others behind, asleep and unaware.

The armed men led her past the bunks and cots, around the corner of the bunker where the light stretched on, but she had yet to see anything more than shadows. However, as the soldiers took her up a set of crude stairs, the realization hit Kitty that there was much more to this facility than a gathering of refugees from Warsaw.

A hundred people or more bustled around a large open area, complete with tables outfitted with weapons and uniforms. The sign Kitty had seen - _Mazurek Dąbrowskiego_– flashed overhead again on a steel sign, and her eyes curiously roamed the words until the officer at the front stopped suddenly, turning to face her with grim features set.

"Who are you?" he asked, but Kitty didn't answer immediately, because two of the other soldiers seized her arms and dragged her forcefully into a seat, although she definitely would have sat if they'd told her to do so. Grunting against their grips, Kitty turned her face to the officer and took a moment to compose herself.

"My name is Kitty Pryde," she told him as evenly as she could manage, though she still heard a tremor in her voice. "My friends and I … we were university students in Warsaw." Glancing at the soldiers standing staunchly at her sides, Kitty felt her features crumple in genuine despair. No need to fake the wild thumping of her heart at what she and her friends had already endured.

"Are you American?" asked the officer, his features reserved.

Kitty paused. "Yes," she said. "We came to Poland to study. But we weren't able to get out before the fighting got bad and then – " She stopped again, working her throat over a hard swallow. "Then, it was too late. We went into hiding, with some a relative of my friend, Pietro – "

"What was the name of his relative?" snapped the officer, daring her to hesitate again in her answer. She didn't.

"Erik Lensherr," she looked up and met the man's gaze, and though his expression changed little, Kitty judged that he didn't sense a lie. He walked around her in a slow circle, eyeing her clothes, and Kitty secretly thanked Angel for forcing them into that house and having them change. Their modern American clothes would've looked odd. As it was, Kitty was still wearing the ragged coat and plain dress she'd found at the massacred village.

The officer stopped in front of her again. "Are there more of you?"

Kitty's eyes dropped to her lap. "There… There was one more." Her mind flashed to the last time she saw Evan's terrified face. "He didn't make it." When the officer fell silent, Kitty looked up, emboldened by her cover. "Sir, I know we were deceptive when we followed the other refugees from Warsaw in here. You didn't promise to help us, and we aren't Polish. But the fighting destroyed the home where we were hiding. My friend got badly hurt by a grenade, and we – we didn't know what else to do." A few silent tears escaped and dropped down her cheek.

In front of her, the officer let out the smallest grunt, a noise which might've been a sigh.

After a few moments of silence, the officer ordered her to stand. Kitty did so slowly, her hands at her sides as she lifted her gaze to his directly. The officer, whose nametag read _Pilecki, _watched her before stepping forward and reaching for the chain around Kitty's neck, yanking out the locket at the end.

Kitty said nothing as he studied the picture of the nameless couple in the photo, the last remaining memory of the village where she and the others had spent the night. Seeing the photograph seemed to confirm something for Officer Pilecki, and he released the necklace, letting it drop back to Kitty's front before he straightened and spoke.

"You and your friends may stay for a few days. We are under orders to evacuate these refugees. When they go, you go."

Relief bloomed in Kitty's chest in the form of a slow exhale.

"Thank you," she murmured in trembling tones, but the officer cut her off.

"But if I catch any of you doing anything strange, or if I think you are taking more than your share – We will shoot you. All of you." The man observed Kitty grimly. "We have enough to worry about. We do not need to babysit four American teenagers. Our concern is with our people."

Daringly, Kitty chanced a question, one borne mostly out of curiosity. "May I ask, sir, what does that sign say?" She turned her head up to the two unfamiliar Polish words etched into the sign.

To her surprise, the officer followed her gaze with a morose expression, moving to stand next to her as he read it outloud. "It says," he said, "Poland is not yet lost."

Kitty turned her gaze to the tall man at her shoulder, eyes wide. "You're the resistance."

"_Tajna Armia Polska_, yes," he said, turning to face her. "We are the Poland's last army. Loyal to our government, which has been displaced by the Nazis. We are our country's last hope." Kitty felt a powerful motion in her chest as the man met her gaze, and although his features were not kind, they also were not cruel.

"We will fight the Germans however we can," he told her, "Not just because of their attacks on our soldiers, but because of their hatred for our people. _All_ of our people." Something in the reflection of his eyes made Kitty wonder what he had seen. Certainly, what she and the others had experienced was terrible, but it had been fairly brief. The war had been going on for years here. Warsaw was evidence of that.

This man did not look terribly old, and yet Kitty was suddenly reminded of the aged and wise Xavier. When she found her voice again, it was filled with the desperate desire to let this man know that Poland would survive this war. That it would be its own country again, free of tyranny.

"Help will come," she said as firmly as she could manage, and the man tilted his head at her, expression a mixture of curiosity and doubt. "They will," she pressed on. "I know they will."

"And how do you know that?" he asked, eyeing her critically.

She bit her lip. "I just have faith," she whispered.

"This is a dangerous time to have faith," he told her.

Kitty considered this before speaking. "With all due respect sir," she said, looking up at his face. "This is a dangerous time to be without it."

Officer Pilecki's expression lifted in surprise, and the first hint of something other than suspicion crossed his face. He nodded to her, saying nothing else as he turned away, moving to the table. When Kitty remained where she was, he glanced at her over his shoulder.

"You are dismissed," he said, and she nodded and quickly returned to the sleeping bags where her friends were. Climbing back into the grimy covers, Kitty turned on her side and looked over Angel's sleeping face.

"We're okay," she whispered, even though none of them was awake. "We're okay."

* * *

The following day was something of a blur for everyone, but Pietro in particular remembered little and cared about even less. Apparently, Kitty had talked it up with one of the officers, and now they didn't have to worry too much, because maybe they wouldn't get shot or something. Whatever.

All he knew was that the four of them were given a single bunk bed, and although they agreed to take turns sleeping in it (though the thin mattresses and scratchy sheets would have been intolerable a few months ago), Kitty pretty much always insisted someone else sleep in the bunk on her night. And Pietro, injured as he was, consistently stayed on the bottom.

Kitty bothered and babied him when he let her, changing his bandages and getting him ice-packs, which helped tremendously with the pain. Still, he wasn't able to do much talking or paying attention for the first twenty-four hours following their joining the other refugees. However, after a day and a half of meals, sleep and some healing, Pietro felt well enough to sit up and move about a bit.

The others, Kitty had told him, had all managed to take super-quick, lukewarm showers made possible by some creative plumbing in the bunker. It had rejuvenated them all, and the regular meals, although they were certainly nothing to write home about, meant everyone felt better than they had in ages.

Well, everyone except Pietro.

He felt better than he had in the cellar, of course, but he was still covered in wounds, bandages, disinfectant and God only knew what else Kitty had put all over him, he'd stopped asking ages ago. But if he couldn't shower, he was at least going to wash off, damn it. So, as soon as he was able, he hobbled over to the makeshift showers and filled some of the lukewarm water in a large bucket.

Removing his shirt and – to hell with it – his pants, he took a seat on a lone wooden chair wearing only his boxers and moved a soaked washcloth over himself. It wasn't as good as a shower, but it was damn nice after everything else. It made him feel more awake, more aware than he had in a few days. Pushing the cloth over his arms and watching the dirt fall off with the water was insanely satisfying.

As he pulled the rag up to his elbow, something caught his eye. Looking up, he saw it was Kitty Pryde, standing nearby and watching him. He returned to his bathing with just a hint of smugness. "Enjoying the show, Pryde?" he asked casually.

He expected her to hurry away once he'd acknowledged her, but she surprised him. And really, if he'd expected anything at this point, it should've been that Kitty almost never did what he thought she was going to do. Moving over to him – ah, there was that hint of embarrassment at seeing him in his boxers, good – Kitty rolled her eyes and shook her head, lips quirked at a small smile.

"I was just making sure you weren't getting your bandages wet," she informed him.

"Right," he replied dryly, glancing up at her with a smirk as he ran the wet cloth over his chest, carefully avoiding the bandages she was so damn worried about. "I'll just let you think that, Pryde."

Not bothered by his sarcasm, Kitty glanced down at his bucket, now soiled with dirt, sweat and blood. "Do you want me to get you some more water?" she asked, before her eyes jumped to his once-silver hair. "I can help you wash your hair."

Pietro raised both brows. "You're offering to help me bathe?" he asked, unable to keep the amusement out of his voice. "Seems a little naughty for you, Pryde." Still, he picked up the bucket and handed it to her, and Kitty took it with only a brief look of annoyance.

"Just your hair," she said pointedly. "It's filthy."

Pietro huffed – his hair was a damn national treasure, thank you very much, the current state of which did not affect that title one bit – but he didn't protest when Kitty returned with a new bucket of water and a small cup, as well as a tiny bottle of unscented shampoo. It was all the soldiers had offered the refugees, and it wasn't much, but Kitty knew the others felt just as grateful as she did.

Moving behind him, Kitty paused long enough to push back her embarrassment. Was she really doing this? _He's injured, Kitty. Because of you. You're just helping him out. _

Outloud, she said, "Tilt your head back."

Pietro did as he was told, a bit bothered by the fact that he could no longer see her. However, only a few seconds passed before he felt her move behind him, taking a cup of water and pouring it carefully over his head, her other hand reaching up to sweep his hair back from his face.

The chair wasn't a comfortable one, and his back still ached from his various wounds, but just the feeling of warm water and Kitty's hand on his head was enough to relax him instantly. Wetting his hair took a few cup-fulls of water, and Kitty took her time gently pulling back every piece of hair until it was nice and rinsed.

"I wonder why your hair is grey," she remarked thoughtfully from behind him.

Pietro didn't open his eyes, but he scoffed loudly enough to make up for the absence of an eyeroll. "It's not grey, it's silver," he told her, though it lacked the bite he'd intended. His tone grew lazy with his body as Kitty poured some of the cold shampoo on his head.

"I just mean," she said, and suddenly her fingers pressed deeply into his hair and whatever the hell she was talking about completely flew out of Pietro's head. Her motions in his hair, lathering the soap and pressing at the roots of his hair, was almost too much to allow normal conversation.

" … a little odd, right? Do you think it's related to your powers somehow?"

Kitty's fingers curled against his scalp, working loose any dirt or grime that had made residence there, easing his body into a relaxed state it hadn't seen in – well, perhaps longer than they'd been in Poland.

"Pietro?" she questioned when he didn't respond, leaning around his prone form to peer at his face. Pietro cracked open an eye.

"Mm?"

Kitty giggled at his dazed expression. "Nevermind," she said, moving back to her spot and pressing her fingers into his hair again, rubbing soothing circles that were perhaps a bit overzealous for a simple hair wash, but Pietro was far from complaining. Her nimble fingers even reached the small hairs at the back of his neck, scratching against the roots and alleviating the tension there.

Occasionally, her hands brushed his neck, thumbs pressing circles into his skin, soapy with lather. Unfortunately, she couldn't do much more, with his torso so bandaged. He wasn't sure if she would have anyway, but it was a loss, either way.

When her hands finally moved out of his hair, she picked up the cup again and poured water over his head, using one hand to shield it from his face. Sometimes, her fingers raked through his hair again, clearing away the soap and the last stubborn bits of dirt. When she was finally done, she reached for a small hand towel behind him and smoothed it over the top of his head, closing it around the tips of his hair in an effort to try it as much as possible. It was still too cold at night to risk unnecessary chilliness.

At last, she moved the towel around his neck and rounded to the front of him, her knees just in front of his. Pietro opened his eyes slowly and lifted his head to accommodate the towel, which Kitty brought to his temple and used to dry away some droplets of water. His hair was still damp, so she left it there, pressing the towel between her fingers as Pietro watched silently, not resisting or protesting at all.

Kitty's eyes remained focused on her hands, until she was nearly done. Then she looked up at him, her hands still balanced on his shoulders, folded in the too thin towel. Pietro looked over her face, and without thinking about what he was doing, he moved his knees apart enough in an instinctive bid to draw her closer. She did, though her eyes dropped to the towel again. After a moment, she let go of it drop back to his shoulders and reached up to Pietro's damp hair, loose and without its usual style.

Both hands framed his face and pushed through his hair, pressing it back against his head in the style he'd worn back home. Her nails raked across his scalp as she did so, and the motion brought her close, until there was scarcely any space between them. Her hands made it through the length of his hair, and her wrists came to rest on his bare shoulders.

"There you go," she murmured, her gaze turning back to his. "Now you're the old Pietro Maximoff again."

Pietro couldn't disagree more.

Without saying anything, he leaned his body forward and let his forehead rest on Kitty's stomach, eyes closing against whatever the hell this was, because he wasn't prepared to deal with it. Not right now.

Being so close to her, he felt her inhale, surprise being her natural reaction to his nearness.

He thought she might push him away – honestly, she dealt with him enough – but she didn't. Instead, she let go of the towel around his neck and touched his hair again. This time, she simply drew her fingers through the still-wet tips, and although he knew her expression above him must have been bewildered, her touch was soothing and sincere.

He couldn't see it. He couldn't see her. His eyes were closed, and only the worn cotton of her dress against his forehead and hands at his neck let him know exactly where she was. That she was still there. His hands lifted to her hips and gripped there lightly, bracing himself against her torso.

They stayed like that for a while, until some others came to the area to bathe. When they pulled apart, their eyes met for just a moment before Kitty flashed him the briefest of smiles. Then she turned and left without saying anything, not looking back at Pietro's hands dropped to his lap, bare.

* * *

"I seriously cannot say enough about water and plain bread," remarked Angel the next day, as Kitty crossed by her in their little area. "Having a full stomach is something I will never take for granted again."

Bobby nodded from where he lounged on the top bunk, one arm hanging over the side. "I second that," he said, before going on sheepishly, "but I'm pretty sure I'd do anything for a cheeseburger and some fries right now."

"Oh my god," Angel made a face. "How dare you remind me that those things exist?"

Kitty took a seat on the edge of the bottom bunk and listened to her friends. A full stomach was definitely something to be grateful for, but all she could think as she listened to them talk was how happy she was that they were alive. That, despite what they'd seen and experienced so far, the four of them had managed to come this far.

Pietro ambled into view, pulling his button-up shirt over his shoulders as he did so, wincing only a bit. Eating regularly had done wonders to excel his healing, but he still wasn't in fighting or running condition, not yet. He took a seat next to Kitty on the bottom bunk before pulling up his legs and stretching out behind her.

"Oi, Maximoff," Angel tossed something at the bunk, and Kitty watched as Pietro caught it in an outstretched hand. "Got you another one of those icepacks."

"Aw," Kitty smiled from her spot, ever approving of Angel, no matter her behavior. "That was so nice of you, Angel!" Without looking at Pietro, she took the ice pack from him and motioned for him to turn over. He did so without protest, and she pushed up his shirt in the back, placing it on the worst of his wounds.

"Yeah, well," Angel shrugged from her spot on the pile of sleeping bags. "I just got tired of hearing him bitch and moan all the time."

"Shut up," came Pietro's muffled reply, his face buried in a thin white pillow. "You try getting blown up– ah! Pryde, god damn it!"

"Sorry, sorry," Kitty muttered, rolling her eyes dramatically at Angel, who giggled as Kitty readjusted the ice pack. Pietro let his face fall into the pillow again.

"See what I mean?" said Angel, smirking. "Total whiny baby. Seriously, Maximoff, no wonder you can't keep a girlfriend."

Pietro lifted a hand without looking and flipped her off.

"I don't know," said Bobby thoughtfully from his spot, grinning a bit with Angel. "That's not the complaint I heard from – Who was it he dated last year? Madison Hughes?"

"Oh, yeah," snickered Angel, catching on to Bobby's tease as her grin grew. "What was it she said after they broke up? Something about Maximoff being… _the fastest man alive_." She wiggled her eyebrows suggestively, and Bobby fell into fits of laughter from his spot on the bunk.

Pietro jerked his head from his pillow. "Shut the hell – Pryde, are you _laughing_?"

Kitty quickly shook her head, coughing a bit to cover up her amusement. "What? No! No, way, that was … a totally immature thing to say, Angel. Bad Angel."

Grunting, Pietro let his head fall into the pillow again. "All of you can go to hell," he muttered, his voice muffled.

And then he popped up his head again. "And we broke up because she was a bitch, so shut up!"

Angel winked at Kitty. "Yeah," she muttered, plenty loud enough for Pietro to hear. "Only enough room for _one_ diva in that relationship."

"Pryde, tell her to shut up!"

* * *

The next few days that followed were surprisingly… enjoyable.

And not just because they had beds (well, two of them) or because they had food and sometimes even showers. But because, as Kitty soon discovered, this was about as happy a place as someone could find in Poland at the moment.

Well, perhaps happy wasn't the best word. But the refugees here were relatively safe, and the soldiers were overworked but determined. And soon, the refugees would get sent out of the country, and the Polish Home Army could move on with their duties. So, the great fortune of this place was that it had a purpose, one which brought a ray of hope to the refugees and soldiers.

"Is there anything we can do to help?" asked Kitty one day. Officer Pilecki glanced up at her, surprised to see her again. Kitty stood in her spot, expression earnest, hands clasped behind her back. The officer's lips twitched just a bit.

"If you insist," he said, and he gave her, Angel and Bobby some chores to do, including handwashing the sheets for the cots and sewing up some minor holes and snags in their uniforms. Kitty was glad to help, and even though Pilecki had originally said they could only stay for a few days, that allowance turned into a week without any indication that they would have to leave any time soon. Some of the refugees were taken out and safely transported, but others remained, waiting to leave the area without drawing the notice of the Germans.

One day, Pilecki found her again, as she was gathering the food rations for her friends. "Pryde," he said, and she turned quickly to face him.

"Yes, sir?"

The officer observed her for a moment before speaking, and after a few minutes of talking, Kitty's mind and heart began anew, her heart racing with joy. Minutes later – after cheerfully thanking Pilecki – Kitty rushed back to their cot area and found Pietro reclined on the bottom bunk, one arm behind his head and the other resting on his stomach as he stared into space, lost in thought.

"Pietro!" Kitty dropped onto the bunk next to him and pulled up her legs to fold underneath her. "You won't believe what Officer Pilecki just told me!"

Blinking out of his stupor, Pietro looked over at her and felt his lips quirk at her joy. "Let me guess – Captain America finally got here and punched that dick Hitler in the face."

Kitty's face bloomed into a smile. "Not quite that good, but close." She leaned close, edging forward until their legs brushed. Pietro dropped the arm behind his head, and it dropped to his knee, arm partially resting on Kitty's. She went on excitedly, "Pilecki just said they're using a helicopter to get the rest of the refugees out and into Switzerland. And get this – he said he'd take us, too!"

Pietro's eyes widened. "Wh – What in the hell, really?"

"Yes!" Kitty beamed. "He said we're on our own once we get there, but I mean, we've got a ticket out of this place! Can you believe it?" She bit her lip and reached for his hand, which she grasped in her own. "We can finally go _home_."

He glanced at their joined hands for a split-second, but the motion was too quick for Kitty to catch. He left them as they were, but when he spoke, his expression and tone were much more guarded than hers.

"Our problems aren't over when we get out of Poland," he reminded her quietly, more subdued than Kitty. "We still have a long way to go."

She waved her free hand. "I know, I know. You have to heal before you can take us back, and - " she paused then, her smile fading a bit. "Wait… You can do that, can't you? Once you're healed. You can take us back to our time, right?"

Pietro was quiet for a moment. And then – "Yeah," he nodded slowly. "Of course."

Kitty's smile was hesitant, but it was there nonetheless. "Good," she said, patting his hand. "Just focus on getting better." When Pietro said nothing, she hesitated before shrugging one shoulder a bit shyly. "And I – I don't mean that just because I want you to get us home. I really want you to feel better."

Pietro tried to smirk, but it was abysmal. "Sure you do, Pryde."

Hesitantly, Kitty shifted away from Pietro like she might move off the mattress, but instead she moved so that the two teens were shoulder to shoulder, backs against the cool wall that served as a headboard for the bunk. Pietro looked over at her, not moving away as she settled there.

"Do I seem like the type of person who says things they don't mean?" she asked softly.

He studied her. "You would do or say anything to keep your friends safe," he said.

Her response was a slow nod. "That's true," she admitted. "But that includes you. In case you didn't know."

"I didn't," he confirmed in a murmur.

They remained locked in a stare for a moment before Kitty shifted and leaned her head against his shoulder.

"Well," she whispered, just loud enough for him to hear. "Now you do."


	12. Chapter 12

Author's Note: Hey, guys! Sorry this chapter took me a bit. Hope everyone is still enjoying. Have a big fat chapter. Thank you for all your reviews!

* * *

It was difficult to gauge time in the bunker.

Without the rising sun to guide them, Kitty and the others only knew when to wake and go to sleep because of the soldiers and their airtight routine.

"When're we leaving?" asked Angel, unable to keep the excitement out of her voice. She pointed to her bag. "I want to make sure all of my random stolen crap is in order."

Kitty giggled. "Tomorrow," she told her from her spot on the bottom bunk. "So you better have your bag ready. I'm sure the soldiers don't want to sit around and wait on us."

"What're we going to do once we get there?" asked Bobby from his spot on the top bunk. The three mutant teens paused and then looked over at Pietro, who reclined on a sleep bag, a deck of cards in his hand. At the sudden silence, he glanced up and cut the deck in half, toying it in his hands.

"I should be fine by the time we get there," he said crisply, eyes on the cards. "Don't worry, your reluctant ride home isn't dying quite yet."

Kitty's smile dropped away, but as soon as she stood and moved towards him – though she wasn't sure what she planned to do or say – Pietro disappeared in a gust of wind.

Bobby scoffed. "Well, at least we know he can run again," he said, exasperated. Kitty frowned and moved back to her spot.

"That doesn't mean he can time-travel," she pointed out, curling her arms around her knees. "He's only done it the once, and it nearly killed him. We need to be patient."

"Whatever!" exclaimed Angel loudly. "I just want to be out of this hole. And I don't even mean the bunker. I mean Nazi-occupied Poland." Flopping over, she tugged on the thin blanket until it was nearly to her chin. "Now, I'm going to sleep," she told the others firmly. "That way when I wake up, it will be time to go."

Sighing, Kitty curled up next to Angel on the narrow bed, though not without one last glance at the sleeping bag Pietro had occupied only moments before. With a troubled frown, she settled into the cot and fell asleep.

* * *

When the lanterns were turned off and the generators had lost their hum, the bunker fell eerily quiet and still.

Pietro glanced in the direction of the bunkbeds currently occupied by the X-Dorks, but he couldn't really see them. Everything was too dark. Still, he gave it the dirtiest look he could conjure.

He should be happy. Even he knew that. They were getting on a helicopter in a few hours, and it was going to take them to a neutral country, where they'd at least be safe from the Nazis.

Still, something didn't sit well with him.

He was getting too complacent. Too reliant. Too familiar with the X-Men. And now – though he'd be damned if he'd ever admit it – he had no plans to leave the other three idiots behind. It just wouldn't do, and not because he was _suddenly_ gaining a sense of morality.

After all, Pietro Maximoff was not evil.

Magneto, that son of a bitch, he might qualify for such a label, though it wasn't all his fault. Magneto been through a lot, and he'd been fucked over and used and imprisoned, and he'd seen things. So yes, maybe Magneto now qualified as evil.

But not Pietro. Snarky? Oh, yes. Antagonistic? For sure. Malicious? Sometimes.

And more often than not, he really didn't care what happened to others, so long as it didn't affect him. If a bunch of regular humans died because they were willing to foolishly throw themselves at mutants – or get involved in wars, or fight against unknown enemies, or hell, hunt dangerous animals – he didn't care.

Let them die. Save the gene pool from having to weed out their defective genetics.

It was of no consequence to Pietro.

But he wasn't _heartless. _There were a select few whom he cared for. His sister being one of the obvious ones, though he'd failed her on that front more than once. He cared for Magneto, though he wasn't sure why, because it was pretty obvious Magneto didn't care about him. He somewhat cared about the Brotherhood guys, but that was mostly because he needed them around for purposes yet unknown.

Now, though. Now, he cared – just a little – about these X-Dorks. Which was, on the whole, rather infuriating. Caring meant obligation. Obligation meant making difficult choices.

And choices – well, the chance to fail was built on the foundation of choices.

Pietro stared through the inky blackness to where he knew Kitty Pryde was.

Too familiar. Yes, that was … for certain.

In the blackout conditions of the bunker, Pietro put his face in his hands. _Fuck, _he thought venomously.

"..._uwa - ga uwaga_!"

Pietro's head shot up, eyebrows furrowed against the darkness. The strange words were broken up by static and crackling, muffled voices. It took a moment for Pietro to realize the voice was coming from a radio down the hall.

Footsteps hurried forward, and a light jumped to life around the corner, dimly illuminating the corridor as a soldier bent over a radio. The voice on the other end was suddenly much more frantic.

"_Uzyskaj obywateli out! Naziści znać lokalizacje!" _

Pietro's eyes widened. "Shit!" he hissed, just as the soldier slammed down the receiver of the radio. Suddenly, the bunker flared to life under bright fluorescent lighting.

A siren began to wail.

Pietro was at the bunkbeds in an instant. "Get up!" he told everyone, pulling Kitty and Angel from the bed as they struggled to detangle themselves from the sheets.

"What's going on?" exclaimed Kitty over the sirens, but before Pietro could answer, Polish soldiers hurried into view and began shouting to the few remaining refugees, all of whom cried out and scrambled from their beds.

Officer Pilecki appeared in front of them, his face stricken with terror for only a moment before it reverted back into the stiff mask of a soldier. "The Nazis have found us. We have to get to the tunnels!" he told the teens, pulling his gun from its holsters. "I called for the helicopter, but the Germans may get here before they arrive!"

An explosion sounded overhead, and the group of gathering soldiers and refugees flinched against the noise, dirt and dust falling from the ceiling.

"They're already here!" said Bobby, his eyes wide.

The remaining refugees, a handful of families, some with small children, cried out in despair or prayer. Officer Pilecki barked at his soldiers and gestured to the escape tunnel, and the families immediately turned and followed, dashing out of the main room as yet another explosion sounded, this time much closer.

Kitty ducked against the noise and debris from the ceiling. "They're too close!" she shouted to Pilecki. "They'll follow you through the tunnels and catch you before the helicopter gets here!"

The man turned to face her, and his expression changed. He bowed his head. "Then I will stay and hold them off as long as I can."

"By yourself?" exclaimed Angel, lips parted in terror. "They'll kill you!"

"Not to mention the fact," said Kitty, and as Pietro looked at her, he saw that determined expression that struck him straight in the heart, "those refugees _need_ you. Your soldiers need you."

More sounds billowed out of the entrance to the bunker, and now shouts were audible. German commands filtered through the chaos of the sirens.

Kitty bit her lip, then shifted to face the other teens. Angel and Bobby glanced at one another, and even though their disappointment and fear was visible, they each nodded.

Then Kitty looked to Pietro.

The flash of grey eyes told her what she needed to know, and without breaking her stare, Kitty said firmly, "Go, Officer Pilecki. We'll hold off the Germans."

The man balked. "You – are children! You cannot – "

"Just go," said Angel, her features morphing into something fearsome. "We'll take care of them."

Finally breaking away from Pietro, Kitty met Pilecki's gaze. "Go help your people, Officer Pilecki. Don't worry." Breathing in deeply, she balled her fingers into fists. "We can take care of ourselves."

Pilecki's brows furrowed, but he must have seen something her eyes, because he finally nodded and hurried off just as the sound of a door exploding off its hinges rocked the entire bunker.

At the door to the escape tunnels, Pilecki paused and looked back at the four teens, all of whom assembled in a tight line.

"I'm sorry, guys," Kitty told her friends sincerely, eyes locked on the entrance as uniformed German soldiers spilled in, guns raised. "I wanted us to leave. I'm sorry."

Bobby's body iced over in one lethal shift.

"Eh," Angel rolled her shoulder, dark eyes narrowed, body trembling. "It's cool. Now, I've just got a _whole_ lotta' rage to let out."

Kitty's eyes shifted over to Pietro, who crouched low. "Bet I get em before you do," he taunted lowly.

"Not a chance," sneered Angel, a furious flame building in the back of her throat.

* * *

The whirring of the helicopter cut out all hope of normal conversation, but even if it hadn't, Officer Witold Pilecki wasn't sure what he would have said. He wasn't sure, really, how to explain what had happened down there, or what he had seen.

The pilot called out to him, asking if anyone else was coming.

With one last glance at the bunker door, Pilecki shook his head and climbed into the helicopter.

_Heroes_, he thought. That is what he had seen.

* * *

Kitty wished she had something else to occupy her mind.

The Germans had destroyed the bunker and its scant remaining supplies. Kitty and the others had taken care of the group at the door, but they'd fled before backup could arrive. It didn't matter. The refugees and the soldiers were long gone, and Kitty knew they would never see them again.

Now, as the four teens trudged on across the Polish countryside, their old objective had taken root again. The coast. Getting across the water. Trying to avoid capture. It was incredibly disheartening, to revisit such bleak prospects again.

And yet Kitty, forever willful, felt confident in their efforts. They had done the right thing, protecting those refugees. And the world would reward them for it, by getting them the hell out of this deathtrap alive. She was sure of it. All people got what they deserved eventually, of this Kitty believed firmly.

So instead of lamenting on their lost escape, like Angel and Bobby (but especially Angel), Kitty instead found herself musing on – of all things – Pietro Maximoff, though that might've been because they had done nothing and seen nothing for three days.

Walking didn't require much concentration, particularly now that they were out of the forest and currently wading through foothills and grassy pastures. It was unnerving being out in the open this way, but so far, they'd been lucky.

She had said nothing much to Maximoff, and he nothing to her, but no one was much in the mood for talking. Angel had managed to gather a few fruits and nuts for breakfast, and it was all that was keeping them going.

And so that left Kitty alone with thoughts of what had happened during their time in the bunker, which was muddy and strange in her mind like a dream that one only remembered after a full waking day.

The strange ease that had come between them was, in retrospect, a little alarming. Not to mention that night in the cellar, when Pietro had clutched her hand in the darkness as she'd fixed his bandages.

Why had he grabbed her like that? In the darkness, it felt like the gentle touch could have been anyone. Anyone but Pietro Maximoff.

Maybe he was just lonely, she theorized, though that sounded rather out of character for Maximoff. No, it was more likely to be a joke than a plea for company. But then, that night when she'd washed his hair… He'd held her, hands at her hips, head bowed against her stomach. It had been such a strangely vulnerable moment for him.

God, this was getting ridiculous.

Kitty Pryde knew better than to let things like this distract her, particularly when their lives were in danger. And even though no one was shooting at them at the moment, their lives were, very much, in danger. They had abandoned the river entirely and were now hoping for a straight trek north. It wouldn't be hard, if the terrain was kind to them, but they were growing weaker with every passing hour without food.

Even if they found a town where they might remain anonymous, they had no money and Kitty Pryde would not kill or threaten someone for food. They could steal, but moral judgements aside, they were too weak to simple grab something and run and too noticeable to be stealthy.

She needed to focus on the issues at hand. Not wonder about Pietro Maximoff's odd behavior… no matter how curious and – strangely fluttery – it made her feel.

Two more days passed.

The beautiful landscape of hills and grassy valleys that surrounded them did nothing to help their moods.

Kitty touched her stomach and winced. She had never known hunger pains were a real thing, but the sharp pangs were becoming so severe that the grassy knoll beneath her was becoming harder and harder to traverse. Her feet dragged against the dirt and her arms settled loosely at her sides. It was hard to stand up straight, hard to keep pushing her legs forward.

_Suck it up, Kitty. You can do this. We are going to get there. _

The others walked ahead of her, mostly in silence. Kitty fought to keep up.

She began to wonder where they were going. It was difficult to remember. She tried reciting periodic elements to keep her mind focused.

_Hydrogen. Lithium. Beryllium. _

One step. Two steps.

_Sodium. Mag - Magnesium._

Three steps. Four.

_Potacium. Cal..cium. Rubid - _

She collapsed.

* * *

"Kitty!"

Pietro turned around just in time to see Kitty collapse against the grass. Angel was beside her in an instant, scooping her own exhausted arms around Kitty's middle and tugging her up.

"Come on, Kitty... You can do this, we'll just go a little further."

Besides them, Bobby Drake ran a hand through his hair and swallowed tightly. "Just stop and let her rest," he told Angel, his voice cracking. Pietro dropped his pack to the ground and closed his eyes for a moment. He felt as haggard as Bobby looked.

In the distance, a train whistled.

Pietro's eyes opened. He stepped around Angel, who was still trying to help a nearly unconscious Kitty Pryde stand. His eyes traveled down the nearest hill, one settled against a thick grove of trees. For just a moment, he could see a puff of white smoke hovering above the conifers.

His eyes followed the tracks. The familiar screech of train gears and rhythmic _thunk_ of the wheels sounded to the south. It would be passing them soon.

Pietro turned and looked at Bobby Drake.

"Hey Drake," he said, his eyes suddenly determined. "You think you make one last run?"

Bobby's brows furrowed. "What - I - I don't know, maybe," he said uncertainly. Pietro looked back at the tracks.

"Do you think you could do it while holding Angel?"

Bobby stared at him in disbelief. "You cannot be serious," he started, but Pietro was already moving past him to Kitty and Angel.

"Alright, ladies, time to go."

"I don't think Kitty can walk, Maximoff," Angel huffed.

"She won't have to," Pietro replied, pulling on the last bit of his strength and scooping the incapacitated Kitty up into his arms. "Because we are getting on _that_." He nodded to the south, where a train engine bellowed in the distance.

"Are you freaking crazy?" snapped Angel.

"Look, Salvadore. I'm getting on that train. And I guess I'm taking Pryde, " Pietro moved her limp form in his arms, "because I'm already holding her. So either come or don't." Just beyond the hill, the train came into view. Pietro dug in his heels and looked at the other two.

"Besides," he quipped to Angel's furious face, "it's gotta be better than that floating door you used to get into the States the first time, right?"

Angel shrieked indignantly, but Pietro simply winked before disappearing in a flash of grey and white.

To the south, the mechanical jolts and jingles of the train grew louder.

Pietro raced, harder than he had for days, with Kitty Pryde carefully situated in his arms. The flashing red boxcars were behind him for now, but soon they would catch up, and it was then that he would really be put to the test.

On a normal day, he could have run circles around this train. Today, he would be damn lucky not to end up underneath it.

The first train car passed him and then another, with eight or ten more bringing up the rear in a wondrously loud series of hisses and clinks. Pietro ran right alongside the track, his feet slamming into the gravel that rolled off the train tracks, right next to the whirring metal wheels that churned at high speeds near his ankles.

_Door, door, door, _Pietro thought, his grey eyes searching out the walls of the train cars as they flashed by. Some of them jolted and jumped as the train flashed over the tracks, creating even more racket than the blinding wind and the metal against metal so nearby.

Pietro's body was beginning to protest in earnest, but he pushed harder.

_God damn it, where is a DOOR? _

Finally, he spotted it.

"Ha!" he exclaimed, forcing his feet faster and faster. Smoke billowed out of the top of one of the boxcars and floated over his head like a haunt. Pietro shifted Kitty in his arms and reached out with one hand, fingers curling, grasping for the metal hook that would slide open the door.

But for the first time in his life, and in possibly the worst moment as well, he tripped of his own accord.

It was such a foreign sensation that Pietro didn't recognize it at first. His weakened legs crumbled, his feet faltered and caught in the gravel, and the intense speed of his run suddenly lifted him up and into the air. The force of the wind billowing off the train sucked the two of them back between the cars and in a split second, Pietro marveled at how badly it was going to hurt to blast through the tin metal walls of the boxcar.

He braced himself and curled over Kitty in a snap of motions, waiting for the pain.

Instead, the sensation of a vortex sucking him through a wind tunnel eclipsed him.

Pietro cursed as he slammed into a wooden floor, skipped over it like a stone on a pond and then crashed into a rickety metal wall. Kitty rolled straight into him and collapsed in an undignified heap.

Outside, the sounds of the train dulled. The wind was gone.

Pietro cautiously opened his eyes. They were in the back of the boxcar.

"Holy - fucking - _shit_," he rasped out, sucking in a deep lungful of air and falling over to his side. Pryde had phased them. She had phased them through the wall. He put a hand over his chest. "Pryde, that was – really useful – "

Next to him on the floor of the train car, Kitty Pryde winced and managed to roll over onto her back.

"Thanks, Maximoff," she said tiredly. "Try to pick up the speed next time."

He shot her his dirtiest look and pushed her legs off his. Kitty grinned at him weakly for a moment, but then she sat up, blinking dizzily.

"Angel and Bobby!" she exclaimed.

Jump up on shaky legs, Kitty pushed herself to the door Pietro hadn't been able to reach. She pulled the handle and slid it open with great effort, just as Pietro moved behind her. "Hey! Watch it!" he shouted.

The Polish countryside rushed by like a life-size portrait in motion.

"Where are they?" she shouted over the wind and train racket.

Pietro peered out with her. "I don't - "

"There they are!" Kitty pointed, and Pietro saw them. _Shit_, he thought. Drake was all the way at the last train car, two cars behind them, racing on his ice and gripping a terrified Angel under one arm. He was barely keeping pace with the very back of the train, but he couldn't get close enough to grab on.

"We have to go help them!" Kitty shouted.

Pietro grimaced. This looked like it was going to end up in some X-Men level heroics, and he wanted no part in it, but Kitty grabbed him and yanked him along anyway.

"We'll have to get to the back, just hold on to me and don't let go!" she told him firmly.

Pietro rolled his eyes. "You sure we can't just leave them?" he asked. Kitty pinched him. "Ow!" He rubbed at his skin and then grabbed her elbow. They both stepped carefully out of the back of the boxcar.

The wind, noise, and acrid smoke assaulted them once more.

Pietro's eyes widened when he looked down. The tracks beneath them raced by in nauseating spurts, and he couldn't help but imagine what it would feel like (for the whole split second one knew what was happening) to be crushed and shredded by them. He and Kitty had only a metal hitch to stand on between carts.

"One, two, three, go!" Kitty exclaimed, pulling them both with a little leap through the front of the other train car. They landed in a cart similar to the other, filled with crates and most certainly not up to the standards of modern day train safety.

Kitty hurried to the back, dragging him all the way. They stepped out again, this time on the very back of the last train. They only had a small bumper, perhaps a few inches wide, to stand on. Behind them was nothing but gritty looking tracks and speeding wheels. Pietro linked an arm around the back ladder that went up to the roof and hooked the other arm around Kitty's waist. The wind threatened to push them both off, but he secured his arm firmly and gave her a nod.

"Make it quick!" he shouted to her.

Behind them, Bobby Drake pushed his powers to the limit trying to keep up with the train. Kitty leaned far out, and Pietro leaned with her, keeping one arm locked around her torso.

"Angel! Grab my hand and I'll phase you guys in!" she shouted. Angel whipped her head around to look at Kitty and immediately reached out, but their fingers kept missing. Bobby faltered a little and they fell further behind.

"I need to reach further!" Kitty told him.

Pietro swore. "If I hold you out any further, I might drop you!"

"Just do it!" she ordered. Pietro scowled and loosened his grip just a bit. His fingers pressed into her hip, determined to keep their grip there. She extended her hand once more, lengthening her body as much as possible to try and reach her friends.

Angel seemed to be growing more desperate. She threw out her arm and struggled, fingertips brushing with Kitty's when the train gave a lurch. Kitty shrieked and Pietro snatched her back to him, holding her there as the train settled.

"I've got it," she promised him. Pietro flicked his gaze to the other two once more before he reluctantly let her go back out. This time, when she extended her hand, she moved her arm just right and caught Angel's hand.

"Pull us in, Pietro!"

He didn't need to be told twice. Pietro yanked them all with the last of his strength and the four of them phased through the back wall and tumbled into the boxcar.

The noises of the outside faded, only to be replaced by heavy breathing.

"Oh... my god," Angel groaned, rolling onto her stomach. Her windblown hair was strewn all over her face. "Screw… all of you people.. Except you, Kitty... You're awesome." She crawled away, dragging her torso like an injured animal.

Pietro let his head fall against the floor with a _thunk_.

* * *

Pietro was so glad to have those bandages off.

Seriously, they were itchy and bothersome and he hated feeling constricted. He'd run around naked a jaybird more than once in his very young life simply because pants were an obstacle he'd rather not deal with. Fortunately, that had been in the European countryside.

Now that he reflected on it, though, his father probably should have stopped him once he started going through puberty. Might have saved him some embarrassment.

Nearby, in the relative safety of the boxcar, Angel poked around some of the cargo, most of which was unlabeled. Whatever they were catching a ride with, it seemed to be harmless enough. The train was heading north, and that was all that mattered. So long as they had a free ride, they would take it.

"I wonder what's in these crates," Angel said from somewhere in the corner, which was largely occupied by several large wooden boxes. Pietro heard wood cracking as the girl began yanking the nailed tops.

"Angel," Kitty started, in an exasperated tone that sounded quite familiar by now. "Don't touch them."

Angel ignored her (_Like everyone else, _Pietro thought with a satisfied smirk) and continued working at the crate with all the grace and tact of a bull elephant. Bobby hovered nearby, peering curiously at her work, but not willing to risk Kitty's ire to help.

Kitty tossed her arms in irritation when Angel ripped off a piece of the crate lid and pieces of wood littered the floor. "I give up," Kitty muttered, slumping to the floor again.

Pietro watched from his perch as Angel fell over into the large crate with a shriek, her feet sticking straight up in the air.

A moment later, she popped back up, holding a cereal box in her hand. She tossed it to a shocked Kitty.

"You were saying?" she asked, grinning wildly.

"Oh my god," Kitty gasped, ripping open the box as Angel pulled out more boxes and jars, all full of preserved food.

"Holy balls!" Angel shrieked, yanking off a jar lid and shoving something in her mouth. "It's a pickle! The most delicious pickle!" she chewed quickly and swallowed, throwing boxes out and letting the others scoop them up. Pietro jumped down and immediately snatched up a load of carefully packaged bread.

It was over half an hour before anyone stopped eating long enough to speak.

"I wonder where all this is going," Bobby Drake said around a mouthful of food.

"Knowing our luck? A Nazi base," Angel said wryly, shoving a mouthful of dry cereal into her mouth. Pietro had returned to his seat on top of the crate, away from the others, but Kitty was near him, cross-legged on the floor. Some color had returned to her cheeks.

"I doubt it," Kitty said (after swallowing her food, unlike the others.) "This doesn't look like military rations. It's probably going to a town market or something."

"Well," Angel said, finally setting the food aside, "They're going to be pissed when they come in THIS car." Kitty giggled and closed up her box. She leaned against the tall crate Pietro was seated on, and he peered down at her thoughtfully as he chewed on some dried meat and cheese.

They'd left the sliding door open. Outside, the countryside was a blur of motion tinted in orange. Pietro watched as Kitty leaned against the crate and turned her face towards the warmth of the sun as it sank into the horizon.

That night, the four teens tucked into their sleeping bags and fell into a much needed sleep. The train rolled on eventually, and when the sun broke over the distant hills the next day, Kitty and the others remained unbothered. They ate again from the boxes, which proved quite wonderful, and together, they spent most of the day dozing and regaining their strength.

Kitty bit the inside of her cheek thoughtfully.

They'd made a nest of sleeping bags in the center of their boxcar, and Kitty happily stretched out on her stomach like a fat lazy cat, playing tic tac toe with Angel using a chalky rock they'd found in the cave from before.

Outside, it was night once more.

Angel crunched on a rice cake and drew an X. In response, Kitty immediately made an O and grinned triumphantly as she drew her victory line along the uneven boxcar floor. "Ha!"

"Oh, man!" Angel scrunched her nose and then laughed.

Bobby dropped down beside them and smirked over their game. "That's like the fifth time you've lost," he told Angel.

"I know that, shut up." She pushed at him and unfolded her legs, rubbing at her sore knees. "You know what's gnarly? Not shaving your legs for a month," she said with a groan.

Kitty giggled. "You know what's even funnier than that?" Kitty asked. "Neither Bobby nor Maximoff have had to shave since we've left."

Angel burst into a fit of giggles and Kitty joined her when Bobby's face flushed scarlet. He rubbed his jaw. "I'm just not a hairy guy!"

Pietro chimed in, "For your information, I've specifically trained my body not to grow hair." He took a seat in the circle of sleeping bags. "It's not aerodynamic."

"Right," Angel snorted. "Is _puberty _not aerodynamic either, Maximoff?"

"Shut up," Pietro groused, taking her bag of rice cakes and crunching on one. Kitty giggled and tapped her chin thoughtfully.

"Hey!" she said suddenly, looking around at the others. "What day is it?"

Bobby blinked. "What day is it here or..." he trailed off.

Kitty shook her head. "No, like. What day would it be if we were still in our time?" she asked.

Angel looked thoughtful. "Well, it was May 2nd when we left," she pointed out.

"It's June 8th," Pietro calculated quickly. "Or it would be, anyway."

Kitty smiled to herself and picked at her sleeping bag. "Why?" Bobby asked curiously.

Kitty's eyes flickered as she looked up and gave a small, sad sigh. "It's my birthday tomorrow," she admitted softly, her fingers curled at her chin.

"Oh, I totally forgot!" Angel said with a groan. "Aw, I'm sorry. Well, you know, you're alive, so –" she tossed up her hands, "Happy Fifteenth Birthday, Kitty!"

Next to her, Pietro choked on his rice cake and sputtered, "_Fifteenth?" _

Kitty looked up at him oddly, her brows knitting together in confusion. "Yeah," she laughed a little, her tone curious.

Pietro stared at her without so much as a blink. Across the circle, Bobby Drake seemed to find something very funny, though he tried to hide it.

"I thought you were about to be a senior!" Pietro squinted at her.

Kitty rolled on to her back and returned his peculiar stare. "I am. I skipped two grades," she explained loftily. "Oh, and my birthday is late."

Bobby seemed to be having a harder and harder time hiding his amusement, and when Kitty glanced up, she saw Pietro shoot him a death glare. "Why does it matter?" Kitty asked, tilting her head up at Pietro with a bewildered smile.

Pietro looked genuinely disturbed. "Nothing. I'm going to bed." He waved them off and stood, wandering off with his sleeping bag. Kitty sat up. "What? Maximoff!" Next to her, Bobby Drake fell over into a fit of breathy laughter.

"What is SO funny?" Kitty exclaimed, putting her hands on her hips. Bobby waved her off as well, still laughing as he stumbled away. Kitty glanced at Angel, who could only shrug.

"Boys are weird," she said by way of explanation.

* * *

An hour later, Pietro felt the unmistakable movements of Kitty Pryde next to him.

He cracked open an eye as she laid out her sleeping bag right next to his, and when she sat down on it, he pointed at her in the semi-darkness of the boxcar. "Stay away from me, you jailbait Jew."

Giggling, Kitty moved to lie down on her side, one arm tucked under her head. Bobby and Angel were already asleep a few feet away. "Aw, come on! How old did you think I was?" she laughed.

"Not _fourteen_," he griped, rolling away from her.

Kitty continued to snicker behind him, and after a moment, she inched closer and tapped his shoulder. "Weren't you listening? It's my birthday! I'm fifteen now!" she teased quietly, glancing once at Angel and Bobby's sleeping forms before she propped up her head with her hand.

Rolling onto his back again to give her his dirtiest look, Pietro scoffed. "I've had enough run-ins with law enforcement in my life. I don't need you around, making it worse. Which you always do."

"I can't believe you've really been arrested," said Kitty, dropping her head down to her arm again, her sleeping bag quite close to his. "That sounds so terrifying. I mean, I know I could escape a cell, but … I'm not going to lie, I'd probably cry. I hate getting in trouble."

Pietro smirked at her. What a goody two-shoes. It was stupidly endearing.

"How do you even manage to get caught?" she asked curiously. "I mean, why don't you run?"

"I do," he said, relaxing against his bag. "I mean, for every time I got caught, there were a thousand more times I got away." He shrugged. "But I can't move through walls like you, ya know. So, sometimes I get trapped. It happens." He paused, before continuing on slowly, "Actually… The last time I got arrested was because of Evan."

He watched Kitty's face fall, and it bothered him. "Oh," she murmured softly. "Evan."

Shifting closer to her, Pietro carefully schooled his face away from its usual callous expression. "Yeah, but… he'd actually think it was a really funny story, if he was here." At this, Kitty's eyes lifted.

"Really?" she whispered, a hint of hopefulness in her voice.

"Oh, yeah," Pietro waved a hand. "He really got me. You know, just that once. I pretty much let him, I mean. Just to be nice." He smirked again, and this time, Kitty relaxed into a small, tentative smile. Tucking her cheek into the crook of her arm, she met Pietro's gaze.

"So tell me about it."

Pietro felt his own lips quirk at something dangerously close to a smile. "Okay," he said, before breathing in a deep sigh, ready for all the dramatics necessary to convey the story accurately. "Well, let me just start out by saying I am by _far _the superior basketball player…"

* * *

Author's Note: I think Kitty is actually 16 in Evolution, but she's 13 in the comics. While dating 18 year old Colossus, no less.


	13. Chapter 13

Author's Note: Hey, guys! Sorry for the wait on this chapter. Don't worry, I haven't forsaken this story. I love it too much. Thanks as well for being patient with the multiple grammar and punctuation errors. I barely have time to get these chapters up, and sometimes my proof-reading suffers for it.

Also, please remember the rating for this story. It is rated **M for mature.** Some of the content of this chapter vouches for that.

Enjoy.

* * *

The train rolled on uneventfully for three more days.

Kitty managed to sneak around the front train car long enough to determine that it would be reaching its final stop soon, and once it did, the four teens would be forced to slip away to resume their trek on foot.

Angel mourned this information loudly, but all the teens were much replenished, their energy renewed for the purpose. Kitty reclined on her sleeping bag for their last night on the train, her hands behind her head. The temperatures at night had continued to drop, and even though she liked leaving the door open to watch the countryside rush by, the frigid air was giving her goosebumps all over.

Pietro stepped over her and reached up, sliding the door shut.

"You're going to freeze us all to death," he told her wryly, climbing down to his sleeping bag next to her. Why the hell he couldn't bring himself to move his sleeping bag away from hers, he wasn't sure. Best not to think on it.

Kitty pulled on the edges of her sleeping bag, securing it snugly around her shoulders as Pietro climbed into his own.

"Seriously," agreed Angel from a few feet away, where she was wrapped in every piece of fabric she could find. "I'm Latina. I'm not cut out for this! Someone turn on the heat already."

"We'll have heat soon," consoled Bobby with a sympathetic pat to her knee. Angel wrinkled her nose and grumbled something in Spanish before she flopped over to the floor and buried herself in her sleeping bag.

From her spot, Kitty giggled, letting her eyes flicker up to Pietro's face. He glanced at her, and after a moment, he shifted his arms into the cocoon of thin fabric and rested his head on his arm.

"Good night!" called out Angel, to which everyone except Pietro responded with the same.

The foursome fell quiet, and for nearly an hour, nothing was said. Only the hum of the tracks grumbling outside and the occasional hiss of steam above them sounded. Then –

"Pietro?"

The speedster slowly opened his eyes, but Kitty knew he hadn't been asleep. She kept her voice low and soft, and the two instinctively edged closer to each other, keeping their conversation quiet.

"Mm?"

"Why haven't you left us?" asked Kitty, without a hint of malice. Very near her, each movement of Pietro's eyes was startlingly apparent. He paused, silent for a moment as he glanced away from her face and at a blank wall. Then he shrugged.

"I'm still recovering," he murmured blandly. "Using my powers is hard."

Kitty raised a brow. "Maybe you can't time-travel, but you can run. I've seen it. You could have been at the coast before the rest of us even reached Warsaw." Tucking her head further against her arm, Kitty dropped her eyes until they met Pietro's again. "You ran to this train," she pointed out when he didn't say anything.

After a moment, Pietro huffed quietly. "And?"

"And you still haven't left us," whispered the tiny brunette. "Why?"

"Are you always this nosy?" he asked, instead of answering her question. Kitty's lips quirked at a smile.

"Maybe. Do you always dodge questions?"

A smirk. "I dodge everything, Pryde. It's what I do."

Rolling her eyes and giggling just a little, Kitty bit her lip and her expression calmed. When her eyes shifted over his face, her features became softer as she took in Pietro's cagey expression. If this conversation had ever had reason to occur before, Kitty could only imagine Pietro's hostile reaction.

Now, though, he simply looked uncomfortable. Nervous, even.

"Well," she whispered, her pale fingers curling against the thin fabric of her sleeping bag, "Whatever it is that's keeping you around, I'm glad."

Pietro raised dark brows. "Right," he intoned lowly. "Because I can get you home." _Maybe_.

Kitty, no longer phased by his cynicism, shook her head a bit against her arm. "No," she disagreed in a whisper. "Because we work well together, all of us, when we try. Our best chance is as a team. And we _all_ deserve a chance to go home." She edged a bit closer. "Including you."

Pietro fell silent, and Kitty watched as some sort of strange, quiet anger seemed to take over him. Then he moved, slower than she'd ever seen him, more deliberate and careful with his motions than she could ever imagine.

In the semi-darkness of the boxcar, Pietro moved partially over Kitty, his torso against hers and his hands sliding up her arms to curl long fingers around her bare wrists. Kitty's stomach pulled in a sharp inhale, and the thumping of her heart seemed louder than any of the other continuous clinks and whistles that sounded from the train.

Pietro's eyes were sharp, and although the position of their bodies was certainly suggestive, with scarcely an inch between their torsos, the look on his face wasn't tender.

Instead, his face was hard, outlined in sharp edges that thrust Pietro's features into an intimidating clarity reminiscent of Magneto.

Kitty didn't move away even as Pietro loomed over her, his fingers curled at her wrists. The grip wasn't painful, nor was it too tight to prevent movement, but there was something about the motion that felt deliberately unfriendly.

After looking over Kitty's pale face for a long, tense moment, Pietro shifted his gaze away and spoke, and his words came out – not harsh or demanding, as his body language seemed to suggest – but almost resigned.

He said, "I am not… _your idea_ of a good guy, Pryde."

His eyes lifted to hers again, and Kitty met them without hesitation.

"You're not my idea of a bad guy, either," she murmured in reply.

Pietro stiffened above her, his grip on her wrists wavering. Kitty felt him look over her face, searching for a hint of – something, she wasn't sure what. Not until he spoke.

"You're really not afraid of me," he whispered, his brows furrowed. He looked more confused than Kitty had ever seen him, and she was surprised how much it pained her to see him look so lost. This was _Pietro Maximoff._

"No," Kitty agreed. "I'm not."

"Since when?" he asked, in genuinely curious tones.

Brought back to the present, in which Pietro lay pressed over her, fingers pressed against her bare skin, Kitty blinked up at him. Then she slowly lifted her hands, phasing effortlessly through his grip and settling her clasped hands on her stomach.

"Since always," she replied unabashedly.

Pietro looked slowly to her clasped hands, then back up to his own, now empty. His fingers curled over nothing and brushed his own palm. Kitty tilted her head to look up at them, eyes flickering back to his bewildered expression. Then she reached up and pulled his hands back down from over her shoulders, until his fingers were clasped in hers again, this time in a much gentler pose than before. He looked back at her, a hint of mistrust on his features as Kitty wrapped his hands in hers and held them at her stomach, just between their pressed torsos.

"You can have …friends here," she told him, fighting against distraction as her senses seemed to zero in on where he curled his fingers against her stomach. Her voice was more breathless than she cared for. "With – with the X-Men, I mean."

The silver-haired speedster looked up at her face and freed one of his hands from hers, only to curl it warmly at her waist. Kitty fought the urge to instinctively press into the touch. When he looked up at her, his expression was surprisingly free of spite.

"I don't want friends, Pryde," he told her. His thumb jumped out and swept over the spot where her ribs sat beneath the thin material of a borrowed dress.

"Then what do you want?" she asked, not moving to stop any of his touches.

He did stop, though, at her question, long enough to give her a searching look. His look of frustration returned for just a brief moment, and he bowed his head so that it rested against her shoulder.

"Fuck if I know," he growled quietly against the fabric of her dress, his body all but intertwined with hers at this point, a full-body embrace that had them both curled against one another. Kitty turned her head a bit, and their cheeks brushed. The motion brought their faces dangerously close together, and this time they both stopped, silent.

Kitty watched his face, motionless for the first time in her memory, for a very long time. Then she brought up a hand and brushed it against his cheek.

"Go to sleep," she commanded in a soft whisper.

Pietro's eyes looked over her face, his lips very near hers.

After a moment, he lowered himself back down to his sleeping bag, and Kitty followed the motion, pulling her hand away from his face but keeping them close. Pietro watched her for several seconds in silence, before he finally relaxed against his bag and closed his eyes. Kitty kept one of her hands joined with his, but it was hidden between their sleeping bags. Pietro didn't protest, and Kitty watched him struggle against the desire to do the opposite of what he was _told_ to do, being that such a thing was a deeply ingrained habit of his.

And then, quite suddenly, his body went slack and he fell asleep, right next to Kitty.

When she was sure he was asleep, Kitty closed her eyes and breathed in deeply for what felt like the first time in quite a long time.

* * *

The following day, the train slowed as it neared its final stop.

Kitty and the others packed as much food as possible in their packs and then stood in the center of the car. Kitty held out both hands to Angel and Bobby. Pietro stood behind her, his hand on her shoulder.

"Ready?" she asked, and when she received nods from the others, she counted.

"One.. two .. three!"

The four of them dropped through the floor of the boxcar and disappeared into the tracks. When they resurfaced a moment later, the train was well ahead of them and coming to a stop in a small town station.

Kitty pulled them all out and gave a woeful wave.

"Bye, train." The others turned with her and they moved off the tracks and away from the town.

They were sixty-two miles from the coast.

* * *

"You know what?"

Kitty glanced at Angel, who walked side by side with her, their arms linked.

"What?" Kitty asked easily, swaying a little as the two of them walked the grassy meadow. The weather had warmed just a little and the sun was a welcome sight overhead. Even the normally patchy sky had cleared. It felt wonderful.

"When we get back to Bayville, I'm going to set some goals," Angel told her confidently. Kitty grinned at her friend and patted her arm. They walked at a leisurely pace with the boys just behind them, as silent as the girls were chatty.

"What kind of goals?"

Angel hummed thoughtfully. "I'm going to start studying. Like, really studying. I mean it, Kitty. Next year, you and I are going to graduate. You're going to be the valedictorian and I - " she pointed to herself with her free hand. " - am going to be on the _honor roll." _She nodded smugly.

Kitty giggled. "That's great," she told her friend earnestly.

"Yeah, totally. I mean - Wait, does all B's count as honor roll?"

"Uh," Kitty pursed her lips thoughtfully. She wasn't sure, but Angel looked concerned, so she tugged her close and giggled. "Yeah, definitely."

Angel let out a triumphant cry. "All B's it is!" she declared.

Kitty looked ahead thoughtfully. "I should think of a goal, too."

"Why? You're already perfect."

Kitty frowned a little. "I'm not! I mean, there's lots of things I can improve on." She tilted her head and her thoughts rolled over the last few weeks. "Like, I could... I don't know, be more open. You know, to other people who aren't necessarily like me. I need to branch out."

Angel snorted. "You already do that, Kitty. I mean, come on, you're dating Lance and he's your total opposite."

Kitty flushed scarlet. "I am not dating Lance!"

"That's not what _he _says," Angel retorted in a sing song voice.

Kitty fought not to glance back at the two boys. "Well, he's wrong," she said firmly, looking straight ahead. "I mean, we went on a few dates, but that was months ago. We are definitely not dating, even if he's too dumb to know it."

They both giggled. A moment of silence lapsed before Pietro Maximoff spoke suddenly behind them.

"What the hell are you looking at, Drake?"

Kitty glanced over her shoulder just in time to see Pietro lean over to Bobby. "Do you want to hold hands and talk about relationship experiences, too? Because - and I'm not even lying here - I would _love _that." He smirked and raised both brows.

Kitty turned away again and laughed, tucking into Angel's arm and hiding her face. Her brown eyes simply would not follow her commands to stay forward.

* * *

The four teens walked for a day, but it was slow going thanks to rough terrain.

At night, they reclined together as they had before, and Kitty worried over the entire evening meal about what Pietro might say or do. They hadn't spoken at all during the course of the day. Now, as night fell, she felt as though the only thing she could was reflect on their time together on the train.

In the end, Pietro put his sleeping bag near the others, but not directly next to Kitty, and they didn't speak until it was necessary to do so the next morning. It took all of Kitty's self-restraint not to try and strike up a conversation, though she couldn't explain to herself why it felt like such a loss.

* * *

Pietro stayed awake most of the night.

This was the last situation he'd ever thought to find him in. Not being stranded in Nazi-occupied Poland – though, admittedly, that one was a doozy.

But this whole – _thing _with Kitty Pryde. This closeness. Since they'd left the train a few days ago, the pair had barely spoken. Angel and Bobby were nearly always around, but it didn't matter. Pietro had intentionally kept away from Kitty since that last night on the train.

If only he'd just pretended to be asleep when she'd said his name. Then, maybe he could just play it off like nothing had changed. That was what had done him in. That moment had damned him.

Well, that and the entire time they'd been in the bunker together.

And those moments under the windmill when he'd been injured by the grenade.

Or that conversation he'd had with her at the house in the slaughtered village.

Plus that time he'd held her to keep her from looking at those bodies.

In addition to the weird thing where he'd saved her from drowning.

And – and – and – _fuck. _

Pietro curled into a small ball in his sleeping bag, doing his very best to protect himself against the realization that this thing – this _closeness _was not sudden. It was not sudden, and it was not fleeting.

Instead, it had taken root deep, deep in foreign lands.

* * *

The next morning, Kitty marched up to Pietro and dropped down right next to him before handing him some food for breakfast. Pietro blinked at her sleepily, his brain still a muddled mess from a night of poor sleep, but he accepted the food.

And when Kitty began her usual upbeat chatter, plunging forward even when he scarcely responded, he found himself smiling just a tiny bit.

Though he did his best to hide it.

* * *

Later that afternoon, the group relaxed next to a creek that split off from the main river. Pietro sat against a tree, knees pulled up in front of him, and studied a combat knife from his pack. He pressed his fingertip over the edge, but it had been dulled with use.

"Hey," Kitty Pryde suddenly sat down right next to him, so close that their hips touched. He paused in his thoughtful perusal of the weapon and glanced at her. She was studying her map.

"What do you think this is?" she asked, leaning closer and pointing. Pietro's eyes flickered over her face for just a moment before he followed her fingertip to the point on the map.

"It's just a pen mark," he told her after a moment's inspection. He touched the map, just next to where her hand was poised. "There used to be an overpass here. It looks like whoever wrote this had marked it out and indicated an alternate route."

He traced it slowly along the crinkled paper, watching as Kitty's eyes followed his careful movements.

"It probably got destroyed," he added, his voice dropping due to their proximity. She sat next to him, so at ease, so willing to trust, and Pietro felt the night's worries falling further and further from his mind.

Kitty tilted her head up at him and smiled.

"Thanks," she said, but she didn't move from his side for almost fifteen minutes, when they finally rose to continue their walk.

* * *

They had only been walking a few minutes when the first gunshot sounded.

Kitty stopped, her eyes scanning over the thick grove of trees that surrounded them. They had left the rolling meadows and cut through an area of forest once more. Everything around them was dense and wild.

Pietro appeared by her side. "It's alright, we're going the other direction anyway."

Ahead of them, Bobby and Angel continued to walk, chatting amicably. Pietro touched Kitty's arm and she stepped once more, preparing to walk. Another gunshot sounded, this one followed by raucous laughter. Kitty continued with Pietro, but she stopped at the sound of a woman's scream.

Kitty's head jerked up and she turned swiftly in the direction of the noises. Another shorter scream followed, terrified and echoing. Kitty's brows furrowed.

"Pryde..." Pietro started, but Kitty was already hurrying off, ducking under branches and dragging her jean covered legs through snagging underbrush. She dropped to her knees when the noises grew louder and crawled on her hands and knees until she came to a small opening in the thickets. Pushing aside the last few leaves, Kitty peered down a tall earthy slope that levelled out into an open area of grass and sparse shrubbery.

Near the foot of the slope, five soldiers in generic military fatigues stood around, joking and laughing. One of them had a gun poised on his shoulder and was smoking a cigarette. Two others sat off to the side, propped up against a pile of tightly bound sleeping bags. The last two, on the other hand, were quite busy holding on to a terrified young woman in civilian clothing.

Kitty's chest tightened.

The woman was struggling, babbling in words Kitty's couldn't make out. None of the speech was loud enough to meet her ears, but it was easy to see that the men had paused to rest much like she and her friends had earlier. She knew other soldiers were around, but they were tucked around the corner of a thick patch of trees. Only slivers of their silhouettes were visible from where she hid.

The man holding on the woman said something sharp to her and yanked her by her arm into his tight grip. She cried out and pushed against him, but she could only stumble over her dirty, torn skirt and well-worn boots. Kitty's chest filled with a deep, boiling rage that threatened to burst when the soldier groped the woman's chest through her smock and laughed to the others.

"Goddamn it, Pryde." Pietro was suddenly at her side. "We have to get out of here."

Kitty turned to him, her eyes brimming with tears. "Not yet, we have to help that woman."

Pietro followed her gaze. His eyes grew hard as the men tossed the woman between them, apparently amused by her fear. "We can't," he told Kitty firmly. "We have to go."

He grabbed for her hand, but Kitty pulled away. "We're not going anywhere until we help that woman," she hissed at him. "Look at what they're doing - "

"I can see that, Kitty. They're assholes. This is war. It happens."

"How can you _say _that?" Kitty whispered harshly.

Pietro looked away for a moment and took a deep, steadying breath before he spoke. "Pryde," he said slowly. "I don't like it any more than you do, but we cann_ot _go down there - "

"_Why not_?"

"Because if we go down there and help that woman, we will have to kill each and every one of those sons of bitches to keep them from reporting back on us, that's why!" Pietro growled back at her, his fingers curling into the dirt. "Is that what you want?"

Kitty's eyes flickered, her heart and mind protesting against each other in deafening shouts.

"We don't have to kill them," she argued heatedly, her tears threatening to spill over.

"You think they're not going to report on a girl that bursts out of the forest and runs through solid objects, Pryde?" Pietro asked, gripping her by the wrist. "If we rescue that woman and leave those soldiers alive, they _will _alert whoever they report to. Do you understand?"

Kitty made a distressed noise and looked back out of the opening. Another man had the woman in his lap now, his hand gripping her knee and creeping up her thigh.

Pietro used her moment of distraction to pull Kitty away from the bushes. He dragged her through the foliage until they reached an area where they could stand safely. "Now come on," he told her, still holding her wrist. Kitty followed with heavy, angry steps. Her acquiescence lasted all of twenty seconds.

Then she phased her captive wrist through his hand and ran.

"Kitty!" Pietro exclaimed, darting after her. He caught up to her and snatched at her waist, but she was already phasing and he landed on the ground with nothing.

Kitty leaped.

Everything slowed as she left the top of the embankment, arms spread, and sailed in to the middle of the startled men. One deft roll got her back on her feet and then she dove for the woman, sinking them both underground in a flash.

Alarmed shouts rang out, weapons fired.

Kitty resurfaced on the edge of the clearing with the trembling woman in her grip, but as soon as they were above ground, the woman ripped away from her and stumbled back into a heap on the dirt.

"_Czarownica_!" she shouted, pointing fearfully at Kitty.

"Just go!" Kitty exclaimed, shoo'ing the woman away. "Go, run!"

The woman scrambled into a standing position and darted, leaving Kitty to wonder if she was running from the men or from her. It didn't matter. She was safe now.

Bullets suddenly littered the ground around her and Kitty cried out, ducking down and looking around wildly for her escape strategy. Unfortunately, all she saw was a quick glimpse of three men levelling guns at her.

She dove sideways, the splitting sound of gunfire following her every step. Kitty ducked behind a tree and tried to phase, but her concentration flickered and, in that one moment, a red hot bullet skimmed over the top of her upper arm and cut through the flesh like a serrated knife.

"AGH!" Kitty doubled over, gripping her bleeding arm and fighting to keep her voice down. More soldiers were coming - the others from the far side of the clearing, too - so she ran off for the forest.

Then she ran into something hard and her mind seized with panic.

Pietro snatched her shoulders and yanked her aside. "DRAKE!"

Bobby suddenly appeared and Kitty nearly went cross-eyed with relief. Pietro shoved her roughly into Bobby, who grabbed her and held her steady.

Pietro Maximoff looked positively venomous.

"Get her the fuck out of here," he told Bobby. The other boy hesitated, Kitty looking between the two of them all the while, her expression frantic.

"But don't you need help with the soldiers - "

"_I said get her the fuck out of here_!" Pietro bellowed, his eyes flashing dangerously. Bobby took an unsteady step backwards and then looped his arms around Kitty. She only had time to glance back at Pietro once before he took her away, into the relative safety of the shadowed trees.

* * *

Over an hour passed. No soldiers came for them. Bobby and Angel wrapped up Kitty's arm, but they had no water to clean it with.

Dirt and blood mixed in streams and tributaries down her arm.

* * *

When Pietro Maximoff finally emerged into their small clearing, Kitty let out a sigh of relief. He was alive. However, her comfort evaporated into the air as she realized he was covered in blood, every inch of him soaked and torn, all a testament to a struggle none of them had had to witness because he sent them away.

Bobby and Angel had been tending to her arm, but when Pietro stopped several feet away and stared at her, they melted from Kitty's side. Kitty stood slowly, her eyes never leaving Pietro's face.

The two teens stood apart, nothing between them but ten feet of dark, wet dirt.

"I hope you're satisfied," Pietro said finally, his words slow and deliberate. His eyes cut at her like daggers.

Kitty swallowed. "I did what was right," she told him, her voice quivering only a little.

His expression shifted into one of such deep scorn, Kitty felt its sting rattle in her chest like a hive. "What was... _right," _he repeated, drawing out the last word like a poison. His lips curled into a humorless smile and he gave an equally dark chuckle.

"See, that's the thing with you X-Men... Everything is so fucking _black and white_."

Pietro lifted his head just a bit, his jaw tight. "Right and wrong. Good and evil." He held up a finger, as if to shush her. "You think that the right choice and the _obvious _choice are always one in the same, but that's because none of you take even a single moment to consider that nature of the world is bit more complicated than that."

Pietro stepped to the side, just once, and he kept his eyes on her like a circling predator.

"I just killed forty-two men, Pryde." His voice dropped to a whisper, low and even, but his expression had shifted into a snarl. "Forty-two. Because you had to save one woman. Does that seem fair to you?"

"Th - Those men - " Kitty started, her voice trembling.

"Maybe five of those men _did_ deserve to die, but because you refused to see the larger picture, they all met an early grave." He pointed at her. "That is your fucking fault, Pryde. It is your fault that they're dead, and I want you to know the reason why."

Tears spilled down Kitty's cheeks.

"All of you _fucking _X-Men," Pietro growled, his voice growing louder. "You only see what's right in front of you, like the bunch of fucking simpletons you are. You want to save those humans because you think it's right, so you do it. You want to stop Magneto because you think it's right, so you do it. You want to bend a fucking knee and scrape the dirt for a peaceful solutions to the _mutant problem, _and what the for? Because it's the _right _thing to do?"

Pietro waved an arm out, his eyes wild.

"You all want to get back to Bayville so fucking badly that you don't even realize you'll be leaving one Holocaust and walking RIGHT into another!" he shouted. "This is what's happening to us, Pryde! This is not the past, this is the future!"

He pointed a finger at her.

"And when they snatch you away, brand you like cattle and put you in a fucking death camp, who the will come and fight for you? These people have the Allies! Their race actually survives this war!"

Kitty stumbled back and shook her sobbing gaze at the ground.

"You're all so content to watch shadows on the wall rather than step out into the light!" he snarled, his eyes alight with fury. "We don't have anyone to fight for us, Pryde! We only have ourselves!" Pietro slammed a fist against the trunk of a tree before he advanced on her, his voice dropping.

"This won't happen to us," Kitty managed finally, her eyes on the ground and her chest heaving. She looked up. "It won't happen, Pietro. People are - people _know _better now, in our time. They're different! I mean, we live in America, for God's sake."

Pietro stepped closer to her with clenched fists, his face twisted into a scowl.

"You are so _fucking stupid._" He told her in such grating, vehement tones that it made Kitty's heart drop.

"You think shit like this won't happen just because you're in America? You think that any of you are safe from the prisons, the camps, the laboratories, just because your government tells you that you are?"

"We don't have to FIGHT!" Kitty screamed desperately, clawing at her arms. "It doesn't have to be this way!"

"_It does and it will_!" Pietro exploded, his eyes briefly disappearing behind clenched lids. Silence passed between them, louder than either of them could ever have managed.

Kitty spoke once more, her voice staggered with every deep breath.

"I will never..." she told him, "... allow myself to believe that just because someone _treats me like an animal _... that I have _any _right to act like one."

Pietro stared at her, his fingers curled tightly.

"Well, that's a shame," he said finally, his voice flat. He met her gaze for just a moment before he turned away from her. He stepped only a few feet away before pausing, turning in her direction, and fishing something out of his pocket.

"By the way, those soldiers from back there?"

He tossed something to the ground.

"They were Americans."

Kitty's lips parted, her mind fighting to keep her from looking to where the stars and stripes flag patch lay on the ground, stripped from a soldier's uniform. She slipped down into a crouch, buried her face in her hands, and she sobbed.

* * *

_"First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—_

_Because I was not a Socialist._

_Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— _

_Because I was not a Trade Unionist._

_Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— _

_Because I was not a Jew._

_Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.__" _

_\- Martin Niemöller _


End file.
